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“THE 


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A ROMANCE OF SOCIETY AND POLITICS 


By JUSTIN McCarthy, m. ?: 

AND 

MRS. CAMPBELL-PRAED 


NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1887 




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what they believe to be a genuine way. “The Eight 
Honourable ” is in the strictest sense the work of a man and 
a woman. Every character, incident, scene, and page is 
joint work, and was thought out and written out in com¬ 
bination. Whatever the book is, it is not patchwork. 

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CONTENTS 


OHAPTER 



PAGE 

I. 

The Little Queen ... 


• •• 

1 

II. 

Outlined against the Grey Sky „. 

4lt 


9 

III. 

Lady Betty Morse ... ... 


• •• 

18 

IV. 

“After Long Years” ... 

• •• 


27 

V. 

Husband and Wife ... ... 

• •• 

• •• 

32 

VI. 

Wife and Husband ... ... 

• •• 


39 

VII. 

Bed Cap and White Cockade 


• •• 

49 

VIII. 

Koorali and her Reeds 

• •• 


63 

IX. 

“What do you call London Society?” 

• •• 

• •• 

70 

X. 

“And so—H allo!” 

• •• 


78 

XI. 

The Family Dinner 

• •• 

• • • 

87 

XII. 

The “Languorous Tropic Flower” 



100 

XIII. 

The Terrace 


• •• 

108 

XIV. 

“Shall I go to see her?” ... ... 



116 

XV. 

Kenway acts the Hero ... ... 

• •• 


122 

XVI. 

“Coo-ee!” 

• •• 


129 

XVII. 

“ One Touch lights up two I.amps ” 

• •• 

• •• 

140 

XVIII. 

The Priory-on-tiie-Water 

• •• 


148 

XIX. 

“Too EARLY SEEN UNKNOWN, AND KNOWN TOO LATE ” 

... 

158 

XX. 

Mr. Dobito admonishes Nations 

• •• 


1G2 

XXL 

“And may this World go well with you 


• •• 

IGG 

XXII. 

The Last Appeal ... ... ... 

• •• 


174 

XXIII. 

“ Thou shalt renounce ” ... ... 



180 

XXIV. 

“Pursuing a Phantom” ... 

• •• 


190 

XXV. 

Pink Snow ... ... ... 


• •• 

198 

XXVI. 

The Progressive Club... 



203 


CONTENTS. 


viii 

CHAPTER 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 

XXXIII. 

*XXXIV. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 

XXXVII. 

XXXVIII. 

'XXXIX. 


“But my Children?” ... ,,, 

The Winter Session ... 

“The Inseparable Sigh for her” 
Masterson at Home ••• ••• 

“The First Day op Liberty” ... 
“One who can prove” 

“A Scene in the House” • •• 
Crichton’s Revenge 
“No Way but this!” ... 

Koorali’s Letter ... ••• ••• 

“I WILL ORDER MY HeAUT TO BEAR IT ” 

Zen comes ... 

In THE Australian Sunset 


PAGE 

216 

227 

238 

242 

251 

263 

266 

279 

286 

295 

304 

309 

318 


THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


CHAPTER 1. 

THE LITTLE QUEEN. 

A GREY morning off the coast of Australia; a wide grey upheaving 
sea; a grey sky which melted into the waves; clouds, and foamy 
splashes blending together on the horizon line, except where the dawn 
was breakini:. There, in the east, a faint pink glow, which seemed to 
widen the vast lonely Pacific and to make it even wider, vaster, and 
more desolate. 

Westward lay the grey shore, lonely and desolate too, and hazy 
with mist; only a promontory that jutted out into the sea almost in 
a line wuth the rising sun, showing clearly—a bold bleak headland, 
below it long stretches of sand dotted with bristling black rocks, and 
on the highest point, a lighthouse, a flagstaff, two or three rough 
cottages, and clusters of wind-beaten bread-fruit trees. 

A steamer bound southward had slackened speed. The Captain was 
standing on deck with his telescope pointed towards the Cape; and 
three or four men near him were w^atching through their glasses the 
launching of a pilot-boat which had been drawm up on the sand below 
the clifis. One of these cried out with eager interest—■ 

“ There’s a woman being put off. They are carrying her on board 
the boat.” 

“No, it’s a child,” said another of the passengers ; “ a little girl.” 

“ Sure, it’s Koorali,” exclaimed a third. 

The speaker was the Attorney-General of the colony—South Britain 
—and was usually known as Judge O’Beirne. He w'as old; he was 
coarse ; his face was reddened by overmuch whiskey, perhaps ; but there 
was a note of tenderness in his voice as he added, half to himself, 
“ Isn’t it me own.little Queen Koorali coming out to see the world ! ” 

Just as the boat put off from shore and became a speck upon the 
sea, a man stepped up from below and advanced towards the group on 
deck. He asked two questions rapidly, yet with a sort of deliberation 
and a pause between*the two. 

“ What are we stopping for ? Who is KoorMi ? ” 

His keen glance shot from the men before him to the Cape—to the 


2 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


boat. There was an air of something like command in his walk, in 
his look, in the tone of his voice, the way in which he waited for an 
answer. This man was Mr. Sandham Morse. He was an Englishman. 
He was about thirty-five years of age, tall, strongly built, and with a 
curiously Napoleonic outline of face. He had even that sallow, olive 
complexion which we see in the portraits of the Bonaparte family, an') 
which, though common enough in the climate from which the Napo¬ 
leons came, is rare indeed among Englishmen. His features, being 
Napoleonic, were naturally statuesque. His lips, firmly set together, 
had an expression of power in them which still further carried out 
the Napoleonic likeness. When the eyelids were lowered, the face 
had a look of gravity or of melancholy which sometimes even darkened 
for a moment into a semblance of'sullenness; but when the deep grey 
soft and bright eyes were seen, then the look changed into something 
peculiarly warm, winning, and, if the word might be used, w^elcoming. 

Sandham Morse had been Premier of South Britain. A few months 
ago he had resigned the leadership of the House, and he was now on 
his way home to England. 

South Britain was aggrieved at his desertion. It was, however, 
generally understood that Sandham Morse aimed at higher political 
distinction than can be achieved in a crude Australian colony. His 
career so far, considering his limited opportunities, had been decidedly 
brilliant, if somewhat eccentric. He was of good English family, an 
only son, left quite alone in the w'orld, with a small independent 
fortune. He had a passion for seeing the world and mixing in the 
affairs of men. When the American civil war was going on and 
Englishmen of the better class, as it is oddly called, were enthusiastic 
for the South, Morse, then not quite of age and fresh from the univer¬ 
sity, went out and became a volunteer in the service of the North. 
He sought service not under some great commander, and in some 
distinguished regiment, but with Wentworth Higginson in his experi¬ 
mental battalion of negroes; and he did well there. When the war 
was over, he threw himself into American politics so eagerly that 
every one thought he was going to settle in the States. He became 
the friend of Charles Sumner, and Wendell Phillips, and Horace 
Greeley. He made many a speech in Cooper Institute, New York, 
and in Eaneuil Hall, Boston. After having studied American affairs 
enough to satisfy his inclination, he set off for China and Japan and 
returned to England. He did not remain at home long; for he began 
to be anxious to learn something about our colonial systems, and an 
opportunity came in his way. A friend of his dead father w\as 
appointed Governor of South Britain, and Morse went out in the 
new Governor’s train. He entered the colonial Parliament, speedily 
gained a reputation for eloquence and statesmanship, led, curiously 
enough, the democratic party, and held office for several years. He 
entertained pronounced political opinions, and had strong secret 
ambitions. Perhaps only he himself knew what these w^ere and why 
the Australian stage did not content him any more than the American 


THE LITTLE QUEEN., ' 3 

had done, Ilis determination to quit Australia had been suddenly 
announced, lie had taken no one into his confidence. It was said that 
he had come into a fortune. It was rumoured that a certain English 
lady of rank was answerable in the first instance for his exile, and in 
the second for his return. It was whispered that he had strange, 
almost revolutionary, views about English government and English 
social systems, and that he meant to fight for a cause. Anyhow, 
while professing the deepest interest in the great Australian questions, 
Morse clearly gave out tliat his farewell would be final. The colonists 
foretold great success for him in England, “ He’ll get on,” they said; 
“ like Bob Lowe—like Childers.” 

The Captain putting down his telescope, replied to the first clause of 
Morse’s inquiry. 

“ What are we stopping for, Mr. Morse ? Why, they’ve signalled 
us from the Cape. Middlemist’s run lies back there, and some of his 
people are wanting to be put off. They always hail a steamer from 
the Cape. It’s shorter than travelling round to the township.” 

iMorse’s dark face lighted. “ Middlemist! ” he said. “ The 
Premier?” 

“ The same that is wearing your cast-off shoes,” put in Judge 
O’Beirne; “ and my Little Queen is his daughter.” 

Morse took up the telescope and surveyed the Cape, the flagstaff, 
the lighthouse, finally the boat, which was coming close to the 
steamer, and in the stern of which a rough-bearded squatter and a 
very slender very young girl were seated. Four men in pilots’ caps 
rowed the boat, and the bow was heaped up with saddle-bags and 
curious-looking parcels of luggage. Morse felt interested. Middlemist 
was head of the squatting party and of the Ministry which had suc¬ 
ceeded his own. He had heard that his opponent owned a station on 
the coast, but had never known its exact whereabouts. Seaboard 
stations are not considered worth talking about in Australia, and 
Middlemist lived chiefly in town, and depended rather upon what his 
grateful country bestowed upon him than upon his private resources. 
He was a big, burly, self-made man; not the kind of person whose 
daughter would be called “ the Little Queen,” or, indeed, who would 
be likely to have a daughter who could be so styled, except in 
derision, and there was no derisive tone in O’Beirne’s voice. The 
whole connection of ideas seemed incongruous to Morse, and the very 
incongruity interested him. 

“ I didn’t know Middlemist had a daughter. And what makes you 
call her ‘ the Little Queen ’ ? ” 

Judge O’Beirne laughed—his mellow county Kerry laugh. “ Faith, 

I can’t tell you. It’s just a nickname she has come by from the half- 
dozen or so of us that have stopped at Muttabarra and watched her 
growing up. I think it is because of a way the child has of looking you 
straight in the face with her big eyes, and of seeming to expect that 
the world is to be just as she likes it, so that there isn’t a boy that 
’ud have the heart to contradict her. Isn’t that the way. Captain?” 


4 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


“I can’t answer you there, Judjie,” said the Captain, “for I have 
never sighted the young lady till this morning, and she is not close 
enough yet for me to make out what her eyes are like.” 

Judge O’Beirne laughed again, but this time rather in a perfunctory 
way, like one who is reflecting. “ Yes, she has got a way with her— 
that’s it. And I’d bet my silver-topped waddy that not a soul has 
ever spoken a cross word to her in her life. Middlemist has always 
kept her at Muttabarra, and he has had the best governesses for her 
that could be got in Sydney—South Britain articles wouldn’t do for 
her; and gave her aunt, Mrs. Campbell—it’s Jack Campbell, Middle- 
mist’s brother-in-law, that is superintendent at Muttabarra—he gave 
Mrs. Campbell strict orders that she wasn’t to mix up with the station 
hands or the township people. There’s something queer about the 
notion,” continued the Judge after a short pause, “for Middlemist 
never branded more than two hundred calves in the year, and w'e all 
know that doesn't run to champagne and swell governesses; and his 
son in the Lands’ OfRce is about as hulking a fellow as you could see 
out of the Never-Never country.” 

“ What is the secret of it, then ? ” asked Morse, stepping back from 
the bulwarks, and leaning with arms folded against the hatchway. 

“Well, you know Middlemist began as a sheep-shearer, and he 
married Poll Watkins, who was bafmaid at the Eoyal when I first came 
to the colon}’-,” said the Judge. “ But Poll went off the hooks, and 
Middlemist went in for tin-mining and made a fortune, and then got 
smashed up. Before his smash came, though, he married a little 
English governess, who was a real lady if ever there was one. She 
died too, and Middlemist started on politics and gave Jack Campbell, 
her brother, a billet to superintend Muttabarra. So Campbell’s wife 
looked after KoorMi; and the Little Queen has had her Sydney 
governesses, and has learned French and the piano, and has had a horse 
kept stabled for her summer and winter, and never a bad woid spoken 
in her presence. And now she is seventeen, and kliddlemist has come 
into his kingdom and is at the head of the colony, and likely to stop 
there till you come back again, Morse. So our little queen is coming 
out of her enchanted forest into the world, to dance at the Governor’s 
balls, and attend the opening of Parliament, and be shown to her place, 
just below the dais, by the Usher of the Black Hod, and learn to flirt, 
and be made love to, and get married, and all the rest of it.” 

There was something quaint and pathelic in the picture. 

“Poor Little Queen!” Morse murmured involuntarily. 

“I don’t know why you should say that,” exclaimed the Judge. 
“Every one will make a fuss about her. She will be a pet among us; 
a sort of child of the Executive—a daughter of the regiment. There 
isn’t another grown-up daughter in the Ministry; and I’ve already got 
my eye on a husband for her.” 

“ Who is he V ” asked Morse carelessly. 

“ I’ll give a guess,” cried an outsider, who had been listening atten¬ 
tively to the conversation. “Crichton Kenway, of course. The 


THE LITTLE QUEEN. 5 

Admirable Crichton! Postmaster-General; chief of red-tapists! Good- 
looking chap! An immaculate young man! Don’t you think so, 
Blorse V ” 

“ No,” returned Morse shortly. “ I shouldn’t call him an immacu¬ 
late young man.” 

As if unwilling to carry on the discussion, he moved to the other 
side of the deck, where he stood silently watching the rising sun, till 
the regular dip of oars and sound of voices on the water told him that 
the pilot-boat was approaching. Even then he held back from the 
excited group which gathered at the bulwarks, looking down as the 
companion-ladder was lowered; and he heard with no show of curiosity 
the interchange of greetings, the Judge’s rough kindly voice, and the 
clear girlish tones that floated up in reply from below. 

“Well, my Little Queen, and it is you that are dropping down upon 
119 in the middle of the sea! A bareheaded waif, indeed! A queen 
without a crown, faith! ” 

“ Yes; I’ve lost my hat, Judge. Barril knocked it off with his oar, 
and we couldn’t stop to pick it up. But that’s no matter, is it? I’ll 
ask the stewardess to lend me one. And—oh, do tell me—Parliament 
hasn’t met yet? Shall I be in lime? We have been waiting at the 
pilot station four days for a steamer to go by.” 

“Oh, you’re in time. Queen; in time to mount your throne, in time 
to break hearts, in time for everything.” 

“Passengers first, then luggage,” called out the Captain, as the pilots 
began to pitch the saddlebags on deck. “Are you coming down with us, 
Mr. Campbell ?” he asked the unkempt-looking squatter in a cabbage- 
tree hat, who appeared at the gangway and saluted the Judge. 

“No, Captain. I don’t take my spree in town till the session is 
over. I shall put Miss Middlemist in your charge, and in yours, 
Judge. You don’t go up the river to the company’s wharf, do you. 
Captain ? ” 

“ I’m bound straight for Sydney, Mr. Campbell, to catch the English 
mail.” 

“Then I’ll telegraph to the chief to arrange about picking up Miss 
l^Iiddlemist in the Bay,” said the squatter. 

“No need for that, Mr. Campbell. Here’s our ex-])rcmier aboard— 
on his way home, more’s the pity,—and all the Ministers will be 
coming down in the Government steam tug as far as the river bar to 
see him off and wish him good luck.” ^ 

Morse came forward at this reference to himself, and a kind of greet¬ 
ing passed between him and the new-comer. 

“The new king attending the funeral of his predecessor. That’s 
about it, 1 suppose,” he said, with a smile which, while it lasted, made 
his face so winning. But his remark was hardly noticed, and tliat in 
itself was a curious experience to Sandham Morse. Everybody was 
occupied with the boat, Avhere Koorali, with one foot on the com¬ 
panion-ladder, was saying her farewells to the pilots. And in her 
iiianner there was a certain gracious case and friendly dignity wliich 


6 


^^THE RIGHT HONOUR A BEET 


amused Morse as he listened. lie could almost fancy that she held 
out her little hand to be kissed respectfully by her vassals. 

Her uncle, swinging himself down, called out, “ Come, Koorkli, the 
Captain wants to get up steam again.” And the Captain said apolo¬ 
getically, “ I have got to think of the tide, and of crossing the Mary 
River bar, miss, or 1 wouldn’t hurry you.” 

“ Good-bye, Barril,” said the girl’s sweet clear voice. “ Good-bye, 
Dick and Nealy. Good-bye, all of you. And I’ll send you a telegram 
every now and then, Barril, just to tell you how I like everything. 
And when I have got the pearl you gave me set, I’ll wear it always. 
And good-bye, good-bye.” 

A moment more, and she stood upon the little platform by the 
steamer s side, supporting herself with one hand upon the rope railing, 
as the vessel made a movement—a childlike figure in a soft, clinging 
woollen frock of grey, which the wind blew close to her form, bare¬ 
headed, clearly outlined against the grey sky and the grey sea, and 
with the tender light of the dawning sun shining full upon her face. 

It was thus that Morse first saw her; and it was this picture of her 
which for long afterwards came to him unconsciously whenever his 
mind dwelt on things lovely and sweet and unstained. He thought 
of her as of something belonging to the day-dawn, as symbolic of the 
hope, the poetry, the ideal joy which overhangs but never quite 
touches actual life; and perhaps it was because of this vague sugges¬ 
tion of unfulfilled promise and of yearning not to be realized, that the 
picture always brought with it a feeling of exquisite sadness. 

Koorali was a slender, wild-falcon creature, at once shy and queenly, 
with a sweet, small, pale face, and red, quiver-shaped, sensitive lips; 
with a small, erectly-set head, and a broad brow shadowed by dark 
brown hair that did not lie heavy, but grew thick and soft and close, 
and with dark deep eyes, dreamy yet fearless, which gazed straight 
afar, as it were, beyond sea and sky, and had a light in them like the 
light of dawn. 

dhe girl stepped on deck, taking the Captain’s outstretched hand 
for a moment, then greeting Judge O’Beirne, and sending swift, shy, 
searching glances towards the men whom she did not know. Her 
eyes met those of Morse. Instinctively, he raised his hat and made 
her a salutation. Koorali returned it with a gesture full of unstudied 
grace, and turning impulsively to the Judge, seemed about to ask a 
question. But the last saddlebag had been flung on deck, and there 
was a little commotion in the boat as the pilots dipped their oars. She 
hung over the bulwarks to say some parting words to her uncle ; the 
companion-ladder was raised ; the screw revolved ; very soon the boat 
had again become a black speck upon the water, and the steamer was 
speeding southward. 

The sun was now well above the horizon, and the shore’s misty out¬ 
lines were growing into distinctness. A keen breeze swept over the 
waves and tossed up foam. The air was fresh and exhilarating. 
Never had fuller promise been given of a glorious day. And, indeed. 


7 


THE LITTLE QUEEN. 

nothing more beautiful in its way could be imagined than the wild, 
strange scene—the lonely coast, with its weird-looking clumps of 
bread-fruit trees, its sandy bays, its rocky points, and tiers of blue- 
green gum foliage stretching back to a distant range of mountains, 
the wide expanse of ocean, rose-flushed, with that white line afar to the 
east, showing where the Great Barrier Reef keeps guard against the 
Pacific. 

Koorali seated herself upon a bench, the Judge beside her; and now 
she asked the question which had been on her lips a little while 
before. 

“ Who is that on the other side of the deck ? He looks like the 
pictures-of Napoleon as he stands with his arms folded. Is it Mr, 
Morse?” 

“What made you guess right, Koorhli? Yes, it’s Morse.” 

“ I have heard you describe him,” answered the girl. “ You never 
said, though, that he was like Napoleon. He puts me in mind of a 
picture in my French history at home, where Napoleon is standing 
thinking—^.just so. He is thinking of liis fature, perhaps; of his 
battles, of his victories, of France, and of the people he loved so well; 
and I think he has a foreboding, too, of defeat and exile and loneliness, 
for his eyes are sad. Mr. Morse is like that, somehow.” 

Koorali’s tone had in it a touch of enthusiasm. The Judge laughed 
more softly than was usual with him. 

“Faith, then, there is something of the Napoleon about Sandham 
Morse. He makes people believe in him. The sort of man, with his 
queer democratic notions, that wmuld suit our navvies and free selectors 
for a republican president, if we were come to that in Australia.” 

“Oh, I wish we could,” said Koorali. “I should like Australia to 
be a republic. I should like my country to be free—really free! ” 

“ There’s a traitor for you! ” exclaimed the Judge. “ Listen to her, 
just! And her father a constitutional minister! Come over here, 
Morse. Y’ou should be introduced all in proper form to Middlemist’s 
daughter—a red republican, like yourself.” 

Morse, who had indeed heard pait of the conversation, came forward, 
and the introduction was made. Koorali gave him her hand. !She 
did not think him so like a tragic hero now when he smiled. But to 
him, in spite of her youth, her brightness and almost childish air of 
inconsequence, she still brought a suggestion of pathos as she lifted 
her eyes to his without speaking. The joke about red republicanism 
dropped, and none of the usual commonplaces occurred to him, so he 
was silent. The Judge went on— 

“And how about the Motherland—the Old Country, and the Queen 
you rebel ? And the divine right of kings, and all the rest of it?” 

KoorMi gave her bare head a serious little shake. 

“We are new. They are old,” she said. 

“And you don’t care about what is old?” asked IMorse, with a tone 
of regret. 

“ Care! ” Koorali’s eyes gave out a soft gleam. “ Oh yes. It’s 


8 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


everything. It’s history, poetry, tradition. But we are going to 
make all that. The people always make it. We will choose our own 
Napoleon.” 

She coloured a little, remembering the comparison she had drawn. 
'I'he Judge laughed. 

“You can’t choose this one. He’s a deserter. He won't fight 
under the flag of his adopted country. The New World doesn’t suit 
him. He has tried America. He has had a go at Australia, and now 
he is turning back after all to his own old crumbling traditions.” 

A clatter in the saloon caught the Judge’s attention. He peered 
down the skylight. The steward was serving out coffee. 

“You thief of the world!” cried the Judge, addressing one of the 
juniors who had looked up from the table with something brandished 
in his hand. “Let go my eggs, will you? and don’t interfere with my 
own brew. I take my coffee with a stick in it,” added he, turning to 
Koorali, “ that’s the yolk of an egg and the least drop of whisky. And 
if they can put me off with a stale egg they just will, the young devils. 
My Little Queen, now—and ye don’t deserve to be called it—come and 
try my coffee and my sticks 

But KoorMi declined, and so also did Morse. Almost everybody 
else went down below. The cabin w'as filled with talk and laughter. 
Only those two remained on deck. 

They talked of the scenery, of the chances of smooth weather— 
commonplaces. 

“ I am going to find you a more comfortable seat,” said Morse, after 
a while. “And then I shall order some coffee up here.” 

He led the way towards the stern of the vessel where, near the 
helm, there was a little space covered over with a rough awning and 
built in on one side with huge coils of rope. He drew forward a chair 
for her, and then left her for a few minutes. When he came back he • 
was followed by a steward carrying coffee and rolls. 

She w^as gazing dreamily at the vanishing lighthouse, and started 
when he spoke to her. 

“ Oh, thank you.” She drank some coffee, but presently put down 
the cup and did not touch the roll. 

“ Aren’t you hungry ? ” asked Morse. “ You must have got up very 
early. Or did the pilots give you breakfast before they brought you 
on board?” 

“I was awake at four,” she answered. “Barril, the head pilot, 
knocked at my door to tell me that there was a steamer off the Cape. 
He got breakfast ready, and we all had it together. It was quite a sad 
meal.” 

“ The pilots w^ere sorry to lose you, I suppose ? ” 

“Yes, very sorry,” she replied gravely; “and I -was sorry, too.” 

“ You have known them a long time ?’’ 

“ I have grown up among them, and they have always done every¬ 
thing they could to please me,” she said, with her little unconscious 
air of dignity. “They used to bring me jam and apples and oranges, 


OUTLINED AGAINST THE GREY SKY. 


9 


whenever a ship passed from New South Wales or Tasmania; and I 
have a necklace made from the mother-of-pearl in the nautilus shells 
they got for me, and such a beautiful real pearl which Barril found 
himself, and which I shall wear always. It w\as Barril who carried me 
on shore when the steamer first dropped us at Muttabarra—I was only 
three years old then. And I have never gone away since, till to-day.” 

“ And to-day they have had to bid good-bye to their Little Queen. 
I don’t wonder that they w'ere sad. But you must feel that you are 
going to take possession of a kingdom instead of leaving one. Isn’t 
this the case?” 

“ It was your kingdom a little while ago,” said Koorali, looking at 
him with a sort of innocent wonder in her eyes. 

He could not help smiling. To the child this was quite a serious 
matter. That was evident. Her father was, she knew, chief minister 
of the country. He had taken Morse’s place. She believed him to be 
more powerful than the Grovernor. She wondered that any one could 
have resigned so splendid a position. As for herself, she was going 
down to reign by this monarch’s side. Perhaps she fancied that she 
might help to sway the destinies of Australia. It was very childlike 
and yet very natural, and only a more brilliant continuation of what 
had gone before. Probably she had always had a voice in everything 
—in affairs at the lighthouse as well as on her father’s station. The 
pilots had worshipped her, of course, and every one had bowed down 
before her; and j^erhaps she fimcied that the heads of departments, 
and the Government officials, and the members of Parliament, and all 
the rest, would also acknowledge her supremacy. Poor Little Queen ! 


CIIAPTEll 11. 

OUTLINED AGAINST THE GREY SKY. 

Falling in with the fancy, Morse said, “ I shall think of you when 
I am far away, and be glad that you are in my place.” 

A curious thought came into his mind: “ After all, why am I 
leaving the place ? ” Aloud he only said, “ I hope you will like your 
crown. But crowns in our day are not crowns of roses.” Then he 
thought he was talking sentimentality, not to say nonsense. 

“If I were really a queen,” Koorali said quite seriously and earnestly, 
“ I shouldn’t care about a crowui. I should only care for my people. 
My kingdom should be in their hearts. But that can’t be, I suppose, 
in this prosaic w^orld, or the time for it is past.” 

Morse did not answer at once. He was gazing thoughtfully out to 
sea. 

“ I am afraid the spirit is dead; but the form remains,” he said 
dreamily, “like one of your ‘ringed’ gum-trees. Perhaps monarchy 
is one of the ringed gum-trees already,” he added, turning to her with 
his bright smile, in which there ivas something enigmatical. 


lO 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


“ So I don’t think I would have any more crowns,” continued 
Koorali. “ That was what I was thinking of when 1 said that I should 
like to see Australia a republic. There are not any real heart-kings 
and queens now, are there? An! strong young countries ought not 
to care about names and forms.” 

Her childlike earnestness and eagerness amused and also touched 
him. Heart-king! Heart-queen! He echoed the fanciful phrase. 
It clung to him. 

You are longing to get to your kingdom—or republic ? ” he asked. 

“Oh yes,” she replied gravely. “1 am longing to see the world, 
and the great struggles of ambition and public life.” 

The world—the great struggles of ambition and public life—in a 
second-class Australian colony which he was leaving because he found 
it insufferably narrow, because it was stifling him with its narrowness! 
He was curiously touched. 

“Why are you going away?” she suddenly asked in a tone of 
wonder and pity, as if in leaving that place he must be leaving all. 

“ I am going to see my world, and to begin my great struggle of 
ambition and my public life—in London.” 

“Is London your only world?” 

“ I think so.” 

She did not speak. She appeared to be reflecting. Evidently his 
words had opened out dim vistas. Just then a bell clanged. It was 
disturbing, and Morse knew that another—the signal for breakfast— 
would soon ring also. People had begun to come upon deck. Among 
them were several ladies. These eyed Koorali with frank curiosity. 
She suddenly became conscious of their interest, and seemed to 
remember the loss of her hat, for she involuntarily raised her hand to 
her bare head, then got up, and, with her air of easy self-possession, 
brought the little tete-a-tete to a close. 

“ I think I had better go down and try to find something to put on. 
I don’t see Judge O’Beirne. Would you please ask the Captain to 
have my pack taken to the ladies’ cabin ? ” 

She made her peremptory little demand with great sweetness, 
^lorse conducted her to the hatchway, and then gave instructions 
about the curious-looking canvas bags which he supposed contained 
the young lady’s wardrobe. He smiled to himself as he watched a 
sailor remove them from the deck. He was a little sorry the conver¬ 
sation had ended so abruptly, and wondered if it would be renewed 
during the twenty-four hours they were to pass together on board the 
steamer. He had ascertained that they would reach Moreton Bay early 
on the following morning. There, according to the official programme, 
the Ministers would come on board from the Government steamboat; 
there would be a breakfast, and his (Morse’s) health would be drunk 
in bumpers of champagne. There would be as much speechifying as 
the tide and the state of the river bar would permit. Then the fare¬ 
wells would be said. Koorali, under her father’s escort, would be 
transferred to the little steamer. She would find her world some forty 


OUTLINED AGAINST THE GREY SKY, 


11 

miles up the river in the petty colonial capital he had left for ever; 
while he would speed on his way to that other world—the world of 
politics, of wealth, of fashion, of poverty, misery, ruin ; the world of 
contrasts, the world of London; and the bright vision wliich had come 
to him with the morning’s dawn would be only but as the remembrance 
of a dream. 

. It seemed that at present little in the shape of harmonious conver¬ 
sation -was to come of the keynote which had been struck. Nothing 
is easier on a crowded steamer than for two people to be for hours 
within a few yards of each other and yet have no opportunity for the 
interchange of ideas. Morse saw Koorali on the opposite side of the 
long breakfast-table, but he was not near enough to hear her speak. 
Her pretty pathetic face was framed in the wide black brim of a 
severely simple bonnet, which he imagined must belong to a grim 
stewardess, whom he had seen hanging about the entrance to the 
ladies’ cabin. The bonnet, in spite of its plainness and its black 
border, had a quaint appearance, and suited the young girl’s delicate 
expressive features, pale clear skin, and deep wistful eyes. Morse 
mentally applied to her adjectives which give the impression of some¬ 
thing ])iaintive and sad; yet he could not be blind to a certain childish 
freshness and innocent confidence in her look which were at times 
especially noticeable and charming. It seemed to him that this extreme 
youthfulness and brightness of hope only deepened the suggestion of 
tragedy that struck him more than anything else about her. It was 
by this tragic touch that she seized his interest. Underlying much 
that was cold and practical in Morse’s nature, there was a keen poetic 
faculty. He took life seriously, and, though he had a shrewd and ready 
perception of the humorous, his bent was rather to its melancholy 
phases. 

All the morning KoorMi flitted hither and thither, inspecting the 
various parts of the steamer, chattering to the Captain, and asking 
Judge O’Beirne questions about the people she was to know and the 
things she was to do. However pensive her face might be, her dis¬ 
position was as gay, apparently, as that of a child, and she seemed to 
enjoy life as heartily. She was a pretty figure as she stood on the 
bridge, and looked at the coast through the Captain’s telescope. 
Morse’s eyes often wandered towards her as he sat on the lower deck, 
but he did not go near or try to monopolize her. 

He left her to the Judge and to the young barristers all the afternoon 
also. He had letters of importance to write—parting letters to political 
friends and colleagues—to political foes as well; and he had his own 
future to think about, and certain vague ambitious schemes to mature 
—schemes which, now that he had cut himself adrift from Australian 
life, seemed to loom more definite and distinct. He had only now 
begun to realize—and he had done so with a sense of shock—how vast 
was his ambition, how intense his determination to carve his own 
career after the fashion that conformed with his character and with 
principles and theories that were powerful enough to be motive springs. 


12 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLEi^ 


As he sat writing and thinking, Judge O’Beirne’s Irish tones and 
Koorali’s voice and laugh floated down to him through the half-open 
skylight. He could not hear what they were saying, but the image 
and thought of the girl blended with his more serious reflections, and 
gave him a strange feeling of double existence. He could not get 
rid of the fancy that he was standing on the verge of two lives, and 
that the hour of choice and crisis had come. For the first time he 
questioned, in a fugitive way, the wisdom of beginning what he had 
called his great struggle of ambition, and of plunging, as he meant to 
do, into the very current of life. He wondered vaguely within him¬ 
self whether after all it would not have been better to remain in 
Australia—to give his energies and talents to the fostering of a new, 
strong, yet unfledged country, and to leave ruined institutions and 
corrupt social systems to dwindle into decay. He was alone at the 
upper end of the saloon, and his mood suffered no interruption from 
the other passengers, who, seeing him occupied with documents and 
correspondence, respected his statesmanlike attitude. He shook him¬ 
self free at last of the dreamy consciousness of Koorali’s influence, and 
his pen dashed off vigorously, never resting till dinner time. It was 
not for some time after that meal, and when the claims of whist and 
hot toddy called the Judge below, that he again found himself near 
KoorMi. She was left by Judge O’Beirne tucked up under a rug in a 
deck chair placed in that sheltered corner to which Morse had brought 
her in the morning. She had taken off her bonnet, and a white 
woollen shawl was wrapped round her shoulders, and partially covered 
her head. She looked very soft and sweet, and there was a radiance 
on her face not of the dawn now, but of the setting sun. She was not 
talking to any one—there was no one near, but her thoughts seemed 
almost as animated as her conversation, for she was smiling to herself, 
and her features were lighted up with bright interest and a sort of 
eager anticipation. He guessed what she was thinking. The steamer 
was speeding smoothly along. A few more hours and life would have 
become dramatic. 

It seemed quite natural for him to come near and remark, smiling 
as he spoke, “ You haven’t much longer to wait now. You wdll soon 
be seeing the world.” 

“Oh!” She gave a little start, and looked at him questioningly, 
as though she were not quite sure if he meant to be serious. But she 
did not put her doubt into words, as for an instant he feared, and he 
felt a swift pang at the notion of having damped her girlish enthusiasm. 

“ Only till to-morrow,” she replied simply. “ I have been thinking 
how lovely it will all be. I think it is so delightful to look forward 
and picture things. Don’t you?” 

He seated himself. “I don’t want to be depressing; but I suppose 
most people would tell you that picturing things beforehand is the best 
part of it.” 

“ Not to me. Everything turns out to be better than I fancy it. 
And everything that I want to happen comes to pass.” 


OUTLINED AGAINST THE GREY SKY. 


13 

“ You are a fortunate girl,” said Morse. “ Perhaps, however, it is 
because your wishes are not very extravagant.” 

Koorali laughed softly. “ A few of my wishes are very extravagant. 
They belong to a fairy tale, and are such a long way off that I only 
dream of their being fulfilled some time. Like going to heaven or my 
ideal republic. Seeing London is one of them.” 

“ You will go there some day. Every one goes to London.” 

“ Ah, some day! ” she repeated, with a pretty movement of her hands, 
shall be there within six weeks; and I shall expect to meet you 
there some time within six years. At the most, that is not such a 
long way off. Then I shall remind you of our little voyage together, 
and I shall ask you if all your wishes, even the most extravagant ones, 
have been so literally fulfilled.” 

“Yes; and I shall ask you-” she began impulsively, and paused. 

“What shall you ask me? I promise to answer your questions, 
whatever they may be.” 

She shrank a little as if in shyness, but did not lower her eyes, 
which met his. 

“I think you want to do something great. You have a look on 
your face—like that—as if you had a star to follow, or there were an 
Austerlitz before you. I should like to ask you when we meet in 
London if you had done what you wanted.” 

“Ah! ” he exclaimed, “ I will answer that beforehand. No. Who 
among ordinary men docs anything great? Who succeeds? Or if 
success comes to the exceptional man for a time, how long does it last ? 
If there is an Austerlitz, doesn’t there come a Waterloo at the end? 
But perhaps it is worth trying even for defeat. And, as you say very 
prettily, one must follow his star.” 

There was a short silence. Presently KoorMi said, “ I shouldn’t like 
to feel like that. I couldn’t look forward to disappointment. I don’t 
believe in disappointment, or in not being happy. I have always been 
happy. I mean always to be happy, and to make people glad.” 

“ 1 think you will do that last thing,” he answered, “ though you 
may not be able to help causing unhappiness, too. But,” he added, 
seeing that she turned quickly, and looked a little surprised, “ it is 
quite evident that your views of life are justified by experience, since 
everything you ever wished to happen has come to pass.” 

KoorMi turned to him again with a little eager uplifting of her chin. 

“ I did so want to leave the Bush when I was grown up. I wanted 
to be at the heart of things—to know what the people who lived in 
cities did and felt and thought. It was my dream. And now, you 
see how soon it has all come to me.” 

“It would have come in the natural order of things, wouldn’t it?” 
he asked. 

“ Oh ! a long time hence. You see, father wouldn’t have been rich 
enough to take a house in the town, and give me all the things I 
wanted unless he had got an appointment. And he would not have 
accepted, nor should I have liked him to have, any but the first place. 


^^THE RIGHT HONO HR ABLET 


H 

You had the first place,” she added simply, and no one could have 
supposed that you would give it up of your free will.” 

“ So,” he said, “ you owe to me the realization of one of your dreams 
at least. It’s a little hard that I shouldn’t see you enjoying it. Tell 
me,” he said abruptly, after a moment’s pause, “ how did you come by 
your wild, strange name ?—Koorali,” he lingered softly on the syllables. 

“ I never heard it before.” 

“ It’s a native name. Kooral is the blacks’ word for snakes. I was 
called after a place on the station where I was born—not Aluttabarra— 
a station further south, among the mountains. The reason is a sad 
little story. Shall I tell it to you?” 

“ Oh yes! ” exclaimed Morse. 

“ There’s a deep ravine down there,” said KoorMi. “ It’s called the 
Kooral Gully, because of the snakes. Aunt Janet says. I don’t suppose 
there were really more snakes there than anywhere else. Anyhow, my 
mother and father had to camp in it once, with my little brother—my 
own, only brother, and his nurse let him get bitten by a death adder. 
He just lived an hour or two. My mother drove home with him in 
her arms dead. Soon afterwards I was born, and my mother died. 
When they asked her what she wished my name to be, she said Koorali.” 

Morse uttered an exclamation of interest and pity. It seemed to 
him fitting, somehow, that there should be this tragic association with 
her name. He was deeply touched. KoorMi’s voice had taken a more 
plaintive intonation as she told the little tale. 

“So you never knew your mother?” he said. “And you lived ' 
among the mountains, a poor little lonely child?” 

“Oh no!” she answered. “I was not lonely. Aunt Janet took 
care of me. Everybody has always been good to me. AVe went away. 
Father could not bear the old station. He didn’t like the Bush any 
longer. He has never been much at Muttabarra.” 

Morse would have liked to know something of the mental relation¬ 
ship between the father and daughter. He could not connect the idea 
of sentiment, refinement of feeling, or intellectual sympathy with his 
impression of the shrewd, somewhat coarse, self-interested, rather 
Jewish-looking man who was now at the head of aftairs. He could 
not imagine Mr. Middlemist the guide and friend of such a girl as 
Koorali. But he asked no directly leading question. After all, what 
did it matter to him? So he only said— 

“Your story is very sad and very interesting. I don’t know why 
I should think of you as having had an isolated childhood, or, if it 
were the case, why I should pity you. It is a good preparation for the 
inevitable loneliness of lifi.” 

She looked at him straiglitly, with almost mournful iiitcrest, 

“Are you lonely?” she asked. 

“I am quite alone,” he answered. “That is, I have no one in the 
world near enough and dear enough to talk to quite freely.” 

“Perhaps,” she said slowly, “when you are in England you will 
meet with some one whom you can trust.’ 


OUTLINED AGAINST THE GREY SNY. 


15 

“Yes,” he said—slowly, too. “It is quite likely that I may meet 
with such a one—in England. Some one to trust,” he went on, 
dreamily, “some one to share one’s soul with; some one whose 
sympathy would bring a sense of measureless content.” He recalled 
himself with a slight gesture and a little laugh, in truth, he suddenly 
found himself wondering how he, who was usually so reticent, could 
speak thus to a girl whom he had met but a few hours behtre. “ Odd 
fancies! ” he said, “ but a man has them; and women, too, I suppose, 
for that matter. They’ll come to you some day. Little Queen. Eor- 
give me. You see I have caught Judge O’Beirne’s phrase.” 

Koorali had withdrawn her eyes lingeringly from his face while he 
spoke. She did not seem to notice his apology. 

“I don’t think one is ever quite alone,” she said in a thoughtful 
way. “ We are not alone in dreams ; and sometimes it seems to me 
that life is like a dream, and that there is a world quite close to us full 
of beautiful, bodiless things—fancies, and music, and poetry, and lovely 
visions, that would become real if only we could strain a little further, 
or see a little clearer, or hear a little more distinctly. I feel like that 
—all strange and so near, so near to fuller life, when I am all by 
myself in the Bush. I feel like that often-” 

“ And yet you want to know the life of cities, where these things are 
not?” 

“Oh!” she said; shrinking, “I shouldn’t like to think that I would 
lose my beautiful fancies. Don’t tell me that.” 

“ No ; I will not prophesy sadness. I will only ask you when—or 
if—we meet in the glare and noise of a London drawing-room, Avhether 
the beautiful fancies are with you still; and if you have kept them I 
shall be very glad.” 

“ Tell me something about London,” she said, and began to ask him 
questions in her quick, impulsive way. 

The night had closed in, and the wide waste of waters gleamed with 
phosphorescent patches. Their talk glided on from one subject to 
another in pleasant fitful fashion. Nothing remarkable was said, yet 
all seemed tinged by the witchery of the hour. To Morse there was 
something strangely fresh and sympathetic in Koorali’s simple remarks. 
He liked their poetic flavour. As a matter of fact, the companionship 
of very young w'omen was not usually agreeable to him. He was a 
man who afiected—in all pure intent—the company of married women, 
and he held a theory that it would be impossible for him to fall in 
love with any except a woman of society—highly trained, sweet of 
nature, noble, and true, but, all the same, one versed in the refinements 
and subtleties of modern civilization. Nevertheless, he liked this girl; 
her talk charmed him. He was touched by her crude optimism. She 
was so undeveloped, and at the same time, ho thought, so full of 
capabilities. In spite of his theories, he liked her air of other-world- 
liness. He liked the quick way in which she seized an idea, her ready 
sympathy and almost tender interest. She set him thinking; and, as 
he paced the deck, long after she had gone below, his mind dwelt upon 


i6 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


her. He could fancy how she would throw herself heart and soul into 
the honourable ambitions of a husband she loved; how she would 
make his ideas her own ; how complete and soothing, and yet how 
stimulating, would be her companionship. What a relief it would be 
to turn to her from the fret and struggle of public aflairs—to turn from 
life’s prose to its poetry. 

Morning saw the mail boat anchored in the bay, and soon the 
Government tender, all decorated with flags, steamed gaily to her 
side. The Ministers came on board, and, after a little of that pre¬ 
liminary fuss and ceremonial in which the baby colony delights, the 
farewell banquet to Morse began. 

Mr. Middlemist, foremost of the Government deputation, seemed 
more engrossed by his official duties than by the meeting with his 
daughter. It was not till after he had made a florid little address to 
Morse that he kissed Koorali, bidding her welcome, and formally 
introducing her to his colleagues. Morse, watching her, saw a slightly 
pained bewildered look cross her face; but it did not stay there long. 
Soon she was at ease, and had apparently settled in her mind that 
the exigencies of a political function required that there should be 
us little show as possible of family affection. 

Two or three of the Ministers’ wives were of the party, and 
KoorMi took the place among them that her father evidently 
intended should be ceded to her. The little by-play amused Morse. 
He observed that the Premier glanced with dissatisfaction at the 
stewardess’s bonnet, and that at the banquet Koorali sat bareheaded 
on the right of the new Postmaster-General, Mr. Crichton Kenway. 

Mr. Kenway was a young man evidently not of colonial origin. 
Indeed, Morse had already incidentally heard that he belonged to an 
impoverished English family which had once owned ancestral acres 
in a midland county that he himself knew. Crichton Kenway was 
of a type very different from that of his colleague, the Premier. Mr. 
Middlemist was beyond middle age, short, dark, and plebeian. Ho 
v/as stout, with stubby iron-grey whiskers and clean-shaven upper 
lip and chin. He looked like a man who took life from an eminently 
practical point of view, and was not free from its grosser influences. 
Studying his face and manner now, Morse could not reconcile them 
with KoorMi’s sad little story of the break-up of ^ his home, and with 
the idea of devoted constancy to a dead wife’s memory. 

Crichton Kenway, on the other hand, seemed fairly fitted to be 
a hero of romance of the conventional order. He was tall, upright, 
good-looking, well dressed, and had an air of breeding. His head 
could not be called intellectual, but his fair hair, parted down the 
middle, grew back from the temples, and his forehead thus appeared 
higher than it really was. He had a look of alertness also, and a 
lather anxiously pleasant manner, as if he wished to produce a good 
impression and was keenly alive to his own advantage. He had 
bright, rather hard blue eyes, straight features, and a fine drooping 
blonde moustache which, perhaps fortunately, fell over his mouth! 


OUTLINED AGAINST THE GREY SKY. 


17 


11 is chin, however, was decisively cut, somewhat pointed, and he had 
a long, lean throi^t that suggested distinction, though it sometimes 
gave him a sort of rapacious look, like that of a fine young bird of 
prey. He was young, not more than thirty, if so much, and it was 
a proof of ability that he should hold even a subordinate place in 
the new Cabinet. The position of Postmaster-General, it should 
j)erhaps be said, was not quite on a par with that of the other 
Ministers. Till Middlemist’s accession to power the Postmaster- 
General had been merely the head of a department, but when the 
office had been conferred upon Crichton Ken way it had become minis¬ 
terial, and its holder represented the Government in the upper house. 

To Morse there was something dreamlike about the banquet. He 
could hardly realize that this was his farewell to Australia, even when, 
in an impressive and heartfelt speech, he returned thanks for the 
Premier's valedictory encomium of his policy and his personal qualities 
and for the enthusiastic manner in which his health had been drunk. 
He had an odd feeling that he was a grown-up youth leaving the 
school in which he had b(!en trained, in order to begin his fight with 
the world. The ceremonial, the fine speeches, the bombast, the reci¬ 
procal compliments, all struck him with a dash of humour and even 
of scorn with which blended as well a melancholy sentiment and a 
tender regret. Or, he fancied, he might be an actor called from a 
provincial company with which he had played happily for a time, to 
some great London theatre. He felt himself fitted for some higher 
destiny; he despised the mimic sovereigns of tragedy and comedy, 
the stage strut, the tinsel, the petty jealousy, the self-sufficiency; the 
dense self-interest which smothered higher aims and abstract motives. 
Already he was far away from all this, and yet he was sad to leave the 
old life, sad to think of the Little Queen who was so contented with 
her sphere, and who would perhaps marry the jaunt premier and go 
on playing leading lady to a provincial audience, never dreaming that 
she had in her the capacity of a Rachel or a Sarah Bernhardt. 

At last it was over—the orations, the champagne drinking, the 
compliments. The Captain had made his little speech, in which he 
reminded the company that he was due in Sydney at a certain hour to 
catch the English mail boat, and that time and tide would not wait 
even for an ex-premier and his successor. So they all left the saloon, 
which somehow remained impressed upon Morse’s memory—the stuffy 
atmosphere, the gilding, the long table heaped with tropical fruits, the 
scent of bananas and pineapples, the soft-footed Chinese waiters, the 
pufiy, vulgar-looking man at the head of the table, the quaint poetic 
face of the young girl, and the good-looking, self-satisfied man by her 
side. They were on deck again, and both steamers were making 
ready to start—the little steamer, her flags flying, puffing spasmodi¬ 
cally, and the big one with its screw slowly heaving, d’here was 
much hand-shaking, and there were many cheers given. The Ministers 
and their wives and the passengers for the capital had gone on board 
the tender. KoorMi, her father, and Crichton Kenway were the last. 


i8 


‘^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


The four stood together. Morse took Koor^li’s hand in his. “ Good¬ 
bye,” he said, and smiled that winning smile which lit up his dark 
Napoleonic face. “Good-bye, Little Queen,” he added in a lower 
voice. “ I hope that you may be happy in your kingdom.” 

Me did not add a wish that they might meet again. At that 
moment the thought uppermost in his mind was that he preferred to 
keep unspoiled in his recollection that picture of her as she stood out¬ 
lined against the grey sky with the light of dawn upon her face. 


CHAPTER III. 

LADY BETTY MORSE, 

About ten years had passed away since the parting vessels separated 
Morse and Koorali. We are in London. There was a great party at 
the house of a London lady of high social distinction—a sort of queen 
of society. It was still somewhat early in the season—a season that 
had been specially brilliant thus far. It was a very interesting season; 
because soon after its opening there came the sudden collapso of a 
Ministry believed to be remarkably strong in the affections of the 
country. It would be utterly superfluous to tell the intelligent reader 
of the unending amount of talk which such an event supplies in circles 
where everybody knows somebody whose career has for the moment 
been blighted by the event, and some one else whose hopes have been 
set burning brightly. The lady at whose house this party is taking 
place was in the very heart of London political society; and she was 
the wife of one of the fallen Ministry. Moreover, she was the wife of 
a Minister who was generally credited with having tried to bring about 
the collapse. He had been riding for a fall, people said. He was 
supposed to have found the Cabinet not strong enough in its radicalism 
for his tastes; to have considered it was weak-kneed, and not fulfilling 
its promises to the country; and he stood apart somehow; seemed 
to sulk rather; and his attitude encouraged the enemies of the Govern¬ 
ment, it was argued; and these enemies were spirited on to bold and 
persistent endeavours. At last they succeeded in forming a temporary 
combination of genuine opposition and casual malcontent, and they 
“ went for ” the Ministry at a moment of peculiar crisis and* carried 
a vote against the Government, and the Government came to an end 
—collapsed like a house of cards. 

Lady Betty Morse was the hostess whose guests choked with their 
carriages and hansom cabs that part of Park Lane in which she lived. 
Lady Betty was the daughter of the Marquis of Germilion. She was 
rich; she was singularly pretty ; she was still well under thirty years 
old, and she was the wife of Sandham Morse—“The Right Honourable 
Sandham Morse, M.P.,” who had but lately been one of her Majesty’s 
Secretaries of State. It was a love match altogether, society said ; 
for Morse’s politics w’cre directly opposed to those of Lord Ger- 


LADY BETTY MORSE. 


i9 

milion,^ Lady Betty and Morse had been drawn together by feelings, 
not politics. And when it was clear that she loved him, Lord Ger- 
milion was far too fond of his pretty daughter, his only child, to think 
of crossing her in her love. He accepted Morse, the Badical from 
the colonies, with remarkably good grace; and congratulated himself 
that his son-in-law was a rising man, a man of acknowledged ability ; 
and that “he has the inestimable advantage of being a gentleman, 
which, by Jove, sir, can’t be said for every Cabinet Minister nowa¬ 
days.” Lord Germilion had been heard to express his regret that, 
since he had no son, the succession to the title could not be settled on 
his son-in-law instead of his nephew. 

Nothing could be prettier than Lady Betty. Her head was small 
and shapely, and was set with exquisite grace on her slender neck; 
her dark brown eyes, with a glance in them like that of a stag or a 
gazelle, went with kindly penetration straight to the heart of every 
one; her conversation sparkled as well as her eyes. She did not 
really say very brilliant things, but she always conveyed the idea 
of cleverness; and, indeed, she was decidedly clever, although not 
perhaps very intellectual. She and her husband were, after several 
years of matrimony, still very much attached to one another, though 
not in the Darby and Joan fashion; their position put that out of 
the question. Lady Betty liked society, and was made for it. She 
went out incessanily; and Morse’s political duties naturally took up 
a great part of his time. Yet they saw each other at some hour 
in every day, and were considered a devoted couple. They had no 
children. Sometimes a pair are drawn more closely together because 
they have no children ; the affections concentrate themselves. 

For all that has been said in the way of dogma on the subject, it is 
still perhaps possible to believe that a poet may be made, although he 
has not been born. But the most disputatious person will not venture 
to gainsay the assertion that a hostess must be born, and cannot be 
made. No training can make a woman into a hostess. Nature must 
have sent her into the world preordained and specially constructed for 
the high position. She must be a sort of living paradox. She must 
be selfish enough to have a constant look-out for her own advantages 
and her own success; she must be unselfish enough to feel a real 
interest in every one who comes within the authority of her circle. 
She must be brimming over with ready sympathy ; but the sympathy 
must not be too deep. She must never be distracted by the real 
distress of one person from the utterly unreal distresses of another. 
She must make her presence felt by everybody. The ordinary woman 
of the world, who stands at her drawing-room door and merely goes 
through the ceremonial of formal welcome to her guesis, bears about 
the same relationship to a real hostess that a pump does to a foun¬ 
tain. A woman without a generous, kindly heart could not be a 
hostess; she would be always merely the unlighted lamp. But your 
really great women—the Sapphos, the Aspasias, the George Sands, 
women devoured by craving for experience, eager to eirink life to the 


20 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


dregs—are not fit for the commonplace part of hostess. They are too 
preoccupied; they would be thrown away on such a position. They 
are too strong, and j’-ct not strong enough, for the place. They could 
not help showing that their natures needed a more powerful stimu¬ 
lant; and that they wanted to soar higher and to go deeper to the 
very heart of things. 

Lady Betty Morse was a model hostess. She stood just outside the 
principal reception-room, facing the crowd of arrivals who thronged the 
stairs and landing. A curtain of heavy, faded-looking arras draping 
the doorway made a charming background to her slender form—very 
richly clad, as seemed to befit her position and the occasion, in bro¬ 
caded stuff of dull Venetian red, with magnificent jewels upon the 
ruffled bodice and sparkling on her neck and in her dark hair. It was 
a fancy of Lady Betty’s to dress after a somewhat matronly fashion, 
and in all the winning charm of her manner there was not the faintest 
trace of coquetry. Adulation, great people, the throbbing interest of 
public affairs, the life at high pressure of drawing-rooms, the ceaseless 
round and routine of society, came as naturally to her as to breathe. 
Any one could see at a glance that she liked the work of entertain¬ 
ing ; that she enjoyed it; delighted in it. Her beautiful dark eyes 
sparkled with gratification as her guests grouped around her. She was 
wonderfully quick; she had a charming little welcome for every one. 
Each man got a sentence, or at least a phrase, all to himself; quite 
peculiar; sometimes spoken wdth a winning little air of confidence, as 
if it were something altogether between him and her with which the 
outer world had no concern. Men who were but new acquaintances 
were surprised and charmed to hear a whispered reference thus made 
to something they had said when they first were introduced to her, 
and which they assumed she had forgotten long ago. Then she liked 
women as well as men ; and women liked her. She never flirted ; but 
to the men whom she really liked and valued, there was a certain 
tenderness in her manner and her tones which they found unspeakably 
delightful. Her ways and her looks seemed to say to each of these, 
“Oh yes; I do like you very much; and you know it, of course.” 
And she did like them in the sincerest way, and she was not in the 
slightest degree a hypocrite. She was a true friend to those whom she 
liked; and, indeed, would have proved herself a true friend to any ono 
who stood in need of friendship and had any claim on her, who had 
even the mere claim on her friendship that is constituted by the need 
of a friend. 

A little group of men had ranged themselves just within the door¬ 
way at her beck ; but their homage was of a somewhat abstract kind. 
They did not look like men who went in for the business of flirtation— 
they were politicians, diplomatists, men who looked at her with fra¬ 
ternal admiration—not one after the ])attein of reigning adorer to 
a fashionable beauty; not one whose manner suggested deep personal 
interest, unless indeed one might except a handsome youth of seven¬ 
teen or thereabouts, with long curly hair and dreamy eyes, who held 


LADY BETTY MORSE. 


21 


her fan, took her commands, and seemed (o delight in playing the part 
of page. “ My pretty page ” -was indeed Lady Betty’s pet name for 
the boy, Lenny, who was her latest whim, and who hung about her 
picturesquely. 

It was a very charming scene. Lady Betty’s house, like everything 
else about her, was perfect in its own way, though nothing in it 
seemed to flaunt merit. It was not gorgeous, nor eccentric, nor even 
artistic, in the accepted sense of the word. Lady Betty had no sym¬ 
pathy with the aesthetic movement. She did not affect the early 
English, the Oriental, the Japanese, the Benaissance style, or any 
other of the prevailing fads of fashion in the matter of furniture or 
decoration. There were no tawny stuffs from Liberty’s ; no grotesque 
porcelain monsters ; no strange patterns of frieze or dado. But Lady 
Betty liked spacious rooms and an harmonious background. There 
was a great hall in the centre of the house, its ceiling reaching to the 
roof, galleries ranging its sides, and a broad oak staircase that might 
have been brought from some manorial castle. There was much 
tapestry, and there were deep-hucd hangings, and a wonderful medley 
of rare and beautiful things, not one of which clashed with the other. 
All, in studio jargon, composed well; no single article was obtrusive, 
even in worth. Priceless china tried to hide itself in recesses, in quaint 
cabinets, and above carved ledges. There were pictures, not too many, 
and mostly landscapes, all gems. There were mirrors, reflecting back 
lights and people, but set so cunningly that it was difficult to believe 
they were mirrors. The lights were electric, soft, and clear; the 
frames were old Florentine. The portraits, what there were, the Ger- 
milion ancestry not insisted upon, were mellow in tone, poetic, sugges¬ 
tive. And yet, was Lady Betty quite poetic? Can a woman of the 
world distil poetry ? 

Every one who attended Lady Betty Morse’s receptions was, to 
a student of men and manners, worthy of note. A representative of 
almost all grades of aristocratic Philistia and upper Bohemia might be 
found there this evening. Prospective monarchy, giving evidence of 
the trumpeted Guelph memory for faces in affable recognitions to right 
and left, and a lovely princess, who claims flowery metaphors, graceful 
as the lily and sweet as the heliotrope, the colours of which she was 
wearing to-night. Lower in the scale, the irreproachable queen of the 
stage whom fashion had set up in place of deposed sovereigns—more 
magnetic perhaps, but soul-vibrating electricity was for the moment 
out of date; a great statesman, crested eagle among hawks; a great 
soldier, many soldiers; the last thing in foreign serenities, and the 
newest innovation in the shape of bejewelled Maharajahs; the tra¬ 
gedians of Society; its licensed jesters; and the generals of the army 
of Art. 

All such, and many more, greater or lesser, upright on their feet, 
some on the outer fringe turning wistful glances towards vacant chairs. 

There had been a dinner party, of course, at Lady Betty’s before the 
evening party. T'he dinner was given in honour of a royal prince and 


22 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


princess. Lady Betty had once been a maid of honour or something 
of that kind ; and Koyalty put up with her husband’s eccentric politics 
for her sake. The dinner party was a little slow. For one reason, 
not a word was said about politics; and just at that moment every¬ 
body was interested in politics. The new Administration had not been 
quite formed; and people were dying to know who was to have this 
j)lacc and who was to have that. But Lady Betty went in resolutely 
for biinging all sorts of politicians together; and this principle necessi¬ 
tated neutrality of conversation at least at dinner. There were several 
bitter opponents of her husband’s principles present; and besides, it 
was understood that Royalty, just then, would rather not hear any¬ 
thing about politics. Enough could be said on the subject when the 
company went upstairs and the guests had come to the evening party, 
and the rooms were filled, and talking was done in groups or tete-a-tete. 

One of the guests at the dinner-table, the new American Minister, 
stood now well within the circle, and made his keen and slightly 
humorous observations on living London. 

There had been some trouble that day, as there often was before 
a London dinner party, in settling the oider of precedence where the 
Ameiican Minister was concerned. More than one perplexed hostess 
had found herself compelled late on the afternoon of her dinner party 
to send in breathless haste to consult high official authority as to the 
place which ought to be assigned to the American Minister in a pro¬ 
cession which included not only royal personages—their position is 
fixed as fate—and archbishops, and a cardinal, and a duke or two, but 
also the jealous ambassadors of great European powers, and several 
peers of yesterday’s creation, sensitive to the quick about all honour 
due to their fire-new titles. 

Mr. Paulton was a very handsome and stately man; so tall and 
commanding that he threw everybody, Koyalty includal, into a sort of 
insignificance. He had been a great political orator in his day. He 
was now falling into years—had left sixty a good way behind; but yet 
stood with the erectness of a tower, and could endure fatigue, even 
the fatigue of social pleasure, like a boy. Mr. Paulton was new to the 
host and hostess and to the whole afiair. That is, when we say he 
Avas new to the host, he had never spoken to Morse before, but he had 
heard of him, and was greatly interested in him. He was also greatly 
interested and puzzled by the manner in which everybody addressed 
the illustrious princess as “ ma’am.” “ One might have thought we 
we were all talking to a New England school-marm,” he said to him¬ 
self. He was discreet, and said nothing on the subject to any one else, 
and after a while found himself replying to some gracious impiiry of 
Royalty with the word “ma’am” on his lips. It amused him. “1 
am getting on in court ways,” he thought. “ I shall presently be 
denounced in some of our papers at home as a minion of Royalty and 
a court sycophant.” 

Mr. Paulton was intelligently inquisitive, like many of his country¬ 
men, and he was very anxious to ask a few questions about men and 


LADY BETTY MORSE. 


23 


parties. He was glad when the dinner was over and the company had 
all gone upstairs and the rooms were thoroughly well tilled. After he 
had had to submit to many formal introductions, he found himself 
happily near a good-looking, pale, slender young man, whose face he 
had observed with liking at the dinner-table, and with whom he had 
exchanged some agreeable words. He got into conversation with this 
young man, and asked him some questions, which were answered with 
great frankness and courtesy. 

“ Our host doesn’t seem to he much put out by the fall of the 
Administration he belonged to,” the American Minister ventured to 
say. And he glanced towards where Morse was standing. 

Morse looked very stately and dignified as he entertained his guests. 
He had grown somewhat stouter and stronger-looking than when we 
saw him last; but his face was still as handsome in its peculiar way, as 
striking and as Napoleonic. 

“ I should think he is delighted,” was the answer. “ They say he 
wanted to get out of it long ago. He is an ambitious man, and he 
had not much of a chance there, I fancy.” 

“I am interested in him ])articularly,” the American Minister saul. 
“ You know he was in the States for a while, and was making a mark 
there when he suddenly went back right away to England. AVell, I 
suppose he liked his own country best.” 

“ He didn’t stay there, all the same. He went out to one of the 
Australian colonies, and got to be at the head of an Administration 
there; and then he threw up the whole affair and came back again to 
England. I was out in the Fiji Islands myself afterwards, and I used 
to hear about him.” 

Mr. Paulton looked keenly at his companion. “Out in the Fiji 
Islands!” he repeated, as if wondering what this well-appointed 
person had been doing in so barbarous a place. “ Then you are some¬ 
thing of an outsider in this sort of thing, like myself. I shouldn’t 
have guessed it.” 

The young man smiled. Ilis smile was pleasant, but it had in it 
something abstract—vaguely cynical. He did not reply at once. His 
eyes ranged the scene, taking in everything—from the central group, 
the starry nucleus, to the somewhat belated hangers-on, eagerly strain- 
ing. 

“I suppose any one who thinks must be an outsider at ‘this sort of 
thing,’ though he needn’t be so in the ordinary sense,” was his reply. 
“ It interests me to look on at this whirl of London society, and see 
the poor birds rising up and beating their wings, knocking all the 
feathers off, some of them, and coming down very much the worse for 
their pains.” 

The American laughed. “ That’s so. Climbers, eh ! But I should 
have thought most of them here to-night belonged naturally to the 
top.” 

“ Oh! social distinction, place, power! It all comes to the same,” 
returned the young man. “ If people would only work the whole 


24 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


thing out like an algebraical problem, the man who bothered himself 
to find X would learn that he had better have occupied himself with 
A and B, which were close at hand.” 

“ I guess if Morse is a climber he’ll stay in England this time,” the 
American Minister said, with a peculiar gesture. “ Quite the rising 
man, is he not ?” 

“Risen man, I should almost say. He must be leader of a party. 
It only waits for him to form a party out of the wreck and welter of 
things here. He seems to have got everything. He is rich, through 
his -wife, of course, and she adores him. She is a queen of society, and 
every one adores her. We tell her so, and she doesn’t mind ; it doesn’t 
seem to spoil her one little bit.” 

“ He ought to be a happy man—yet he don’t look like it.” 

“ 'i hink not ? Oh yes; he is very happy. He delights in the 
great political game he is playing; and his wife plays the social game 
for him just as well, or better.” 

“ I have got a way of looking at faces,” said the American, “ and I 
study the line of the forehead just above the eyes w'hen a man’s face 
is in repose; and I find it tells you a good deal. Now, there is some¬ 
thing depressed and melancholy about this man.” 

The young man looked again at his host. Evidently this view of 
Morse’s character had not occurred to him before. 

“ I don’t know why he should be melancholy. He has got about 
all he wants, I should think. He says very clever and amusing 
things in his speeches sometimes. No; I shouldn’t think he was 
melancholy; a man like him hasn’t time to be.” 

“ Do you think he is a sincere man?” the American asked, in his 
direct way. “ A sincere man, or an ambitious man merely ? A 
statesman, or a politician—if you understand how we Americans use 
the word politician and the sort of distinction w^e make.” 

“In that sense I should say a sincere man, certainly; I am sure he 
believes all he says. But I think he is ambitious, too. I really don’t 
know him very well; we don’t seem to hit it off quite. I don’t think 
he is serious enough in his views of things.” The young man was a 
little embarrassed now, and spoke with a winning sort of diffidence. 

“ No? Not serious enough, with that face ?” 

“ No; not in my way. 1 think a man with his influence over the 
people—the people adore him, you know—could do better than form 
political combinations. I think he ought to go for social reform, and 
for trying to make our people sober and good and believers in all 
that is good. What England wants is moral reformation—more, much 
more, than political reform. Morse does not see this. I think that 
is one reason why we don’t suit each other. I dare say it is my fault; 
I don’t do him justice, perhaps. Every man must have his own way,” 
the young man added modestly. 

There was a moment’s pause in the conversation. 

“ What kind of a party would Morse be likely to form, do you 
think ? ” Mr. Paulton asked. 


LAW BETTY MORSE. 


25 

“ Something very radical; democratic, in our English sense of the 
word. I am much mistaken if Morse has not set his heart on laying 
the foundations of a regular republican party in the House of Com¬ 
mons ” 

“ Do you mean that he would undermine the throne?” 

The young man laughed. “ They Ve begun to do that already, 
haven’t they? They’re undermining the House of Lords.” 

Together and involuntarily both the speakers glanced in the 
direction where Royalty was standing in the midst of its little imme¬ 
diate circle. This was a large party ; many of the company had not 
been brought so closely within the influence of Royalty before, and 
the influence was just at the moment a little chilling. That was not 
Royalty’s fault; Royalty was very gracious, and knew how to show 
its graciousness. Still, to those who are not ({uite used to such a 
presence and influence, it is trying. We are delighted to be there, of 
course. Are we not free Britons ? Do we not rule the waves ?—go 
to; and do we not exult in being brought near to great personages ? 
But the joy has a certain uneasiness in it. It is a fearful joy. We 
may not be doing quite the right thing; Royalty may look at us at 
the wrong time ; may catch us in something awkward ; may smile at 
us. All this has to be considered. Ladies were being presented to 
Ro 5 ’'alty every now and then, and were ducking down to the carpet in 
becoming reverence. Morse was standing quite near Royalty just at 
the moment when the American Minister looked round. 

“ I don’t suppose things are quite ripe for that with you,” he said 
in a low tone. “ It is hard for a stranger to understand your athiirs ; 
but I shouldn’t have thought there was the least chance for such a 
party as that—if it really means to knock down dummies. I re¬ 
member very well the saying of General Prim, after he had turned the 
Bourbons out of Spain, and people thought he was going to set up a 
republic—I knew General Prim—‘ You can’t have a republic without 
republicans,’ he said. Is not that saying applicable to England ? ” 

“ Seems a little odd, our discussing the question just here under the 
very eyes of H.R.H. himself. You had better talk to Morse about it 
privately some time; ho will explain his views much better than I 
could. I have never spoken to him about it. I dine here often, but 
he doesn’t talk much to me. I come here because of Lady Betty. 
She is a cousin of mine, and I’m very fond of her. I wish she hadn’t 
married him. I have said so to her, and a pretty snubbing I got, I 
cjin tell you.” 

The speaker was evidently anxious to turn away the talk from 
politics ; and the American Minister and he drifted apart soon after. 
Mr. Paulton was curious to knew the name of the very agreeable 
jierson with whom ho had been talking so freely. He asked some one 
who happened to come near him and whom he knew slightly. 

“ That man ? Oh, that’s Arden—Lord Arden, son of the Earl of 
Forrest.” 

“ Is he a remarkable man ? 
d 


26 


“77/ii RIGHT HONOURABLE. 


“ Lord Arden ? Well, yes; he represents a sort of new-fashioned 
school in society and politics. He is a mediteval Tory, a stained-glass- 
attitilde reactiunary, who goes in for virtue, temperance, and the 
working man.” 

Lord Arden was an enthusiast. He was one of the young apostles 
of a new school of purity. He helievcd in the possibility (>f so elevating 
the standard of morality in modern life as to make it the duty of man 
to be as pure as the duty of woman is always declared to be. It was 
understood that he made his own life conform strictly to this principle; 
and there was a certain imatfected nobleness of manner about him 
which prevented even men of the world from laughing or sneering at 
him. He was the idol of a great many women ; matrons of a devo¬ 
tional turn, or serious girls with exalted views of life. He was the 
son of a shy, eccentric nobleman—a curious figure in modern society, 
for he seemed to belong to a far past time, and was indeed the devotee, 
the last perhaps., of the lost Jacobite cause. Lord Arden had some of 
his fatlifer’s shyness, but very little of his eccentricity. He was hand¬ 
some and graceful; he dressed well; he had a sweet, clear voice; he 
had a great deal of quiet humour. In the House of Commons, he was 
considered one of the best speakers among the younger men there ; 
and he was already a recognized authority on many social questions, 
such as the condition of the artisan population, and the housing of the 
poor. He was sincerely devoted to the various beneficent causes which 
he had taken up. He positively spent move time and energy in doing 
good than most other young men of his class spend in doing harm. 
Lord Forrest was intensely fund of his son; and proud of him in a 
half-melancholy sort of way. In his brighter moods it ]deased him to 
think of his own wasted career being fulfilled in the career of his son. 

Arden had never quite liked klorse. For one reason, perhaps, 
although Arden was not quite conscious of being now influenced by it, 
he had rather resented Morse’s becoming the husband of Lady Betty. 
Lord Arden was, as he had told Mr. Paul ton, a cousin of Lady Betty, 
and was very much attached to her; not at all in a lover-like way, but 
with a very sincere affection. He had a good many caste prejudices, 
though he would not have owned to them. He thought Morse was 
not good enough for her; was not the sort of man she ought to have 
for a husband. Probably he would have held the same opinion about 
any other man who ventured to ask Lady Betty to marry him. But 
he made a handle against Morse of his radical politics and his all but 
revolutionary theories as they appeared to Arden. Morse was in fact 
a man of too strong a fibre to be much to Lord Arden’s taste; and 
then Morse had no belief in the possibility of much permanent or long- 
abiding good being done by philanthropic organizations or by com¬ 
mittees for the promotion of virtue. Morse believed in regenerating 
society by making men independent, by giving them education, and 
striving to open a clear way for all by the abolition of class distinctions. 
“Loose him, and let him go” was the principle Morse applied to man. 
He had, in spite of himself, a sort of contempt for Lord Arden's white- 


AFTER LONG VEARSJ 


27 

ribbon brotherlioods, and did not believe they would in the end do 
anything whatever towards the purification of the world. Lord Arden, 
on the other hand, was all for men concerning themselves about their 
duties rather than about their rights. Lady Betty went of course 
openly and avowedly with her husband, and took his views of the 
matter, as she felt bound to do; but in her heart she had much sym¬ 
pathy with Arden’s philanthropy, and with his dreams of manhood 
made pure through the influence of a social organization, a league, and 
a ribbon. 


CIIAPTEIl IV. 

“AFTER LONG YEARS.” 

Lady Betty, still standing near the doorway, signalled her husband 
and whispered to him behind her fan, which was a screen of dull red 
ostrich plumes fastened into a jewelled handle, “ Sandham, love, I do 
want your help. There’s a colonial agent-general here—I forget his 
name—Sir Vesey Plympton sent him to mo with such a letter of 
introduction—and he has such a lovely shy little beauty of a wife. 
They have just come, and they don’t know anybody, and she can’t 
talk to dull people—and our people to-night are so very dull! I want 
you to come and talk to him, and say nice things—very nice things, 
mind!—to her. Look ! she is there, close to old Lady Fotheringham. 
Good gracious, what a contrast! ” 

And looking in the direction indicated by his wife’s words Sandham 
Morse saw Koor^li. Changed, indeed, but still the Koorali he had seen 
and had kept in his mind—more or less, less perhaps rather than more 
— outlined against the grey sky, with the light of an Australian dawn 
upon her face. How did she look now ? Far more beautiful, more 
developed; her face even more expressive; a child of nature turned 
into a contemplative woman—a woman who had lived, who had had 
a life, who had been forced by fate to taste of the tree of knowledge. 

“ Isn’t she pretty ? ” Lady Betty asked. “ Do you know, I think 
she has a look of me.” 

Yes; there luas a faint resemblance. It struck him now, struck 
him curiously, like a breath of icy wind, like a ghost passing. The 
height, the figure, the form of each stag-like head, the colour of the 
eyes. But there it ended. Lady Betty’s quick, sparkling glances had 
not that dreamy far-seeing kind of repose. 

A ghost! Of what ? Of a past that had been only a shadow. Of 
an ideal that had never had any substance; that had not indeed 
presented itself definitely to his imagination, but had only glided by, 
thrilling vague suggestions into thoughts for a little while, and then 
fading into less than a memory\ 

It was strange, this flash of vivid sensibility, and out of keeping 
with his surroundings and with his mood of a few moments before. 


“r//is RIGHT honourable:^ 

lie had heen watching his wife, admiring her beauty, tact, and self- 
possession, and enjoying the sight of her popularity. lie had paid the 
conventional dues with almost a sense of satisfaction. He had too 
]n’oper an appreciation ot drama—of any kind—not to perform even 
the conventional ]'art of host to the best of his ability. 

On the whole he had been very happy, in his w'ay, all the evening. 
The course of recent events had pleased and contented him. He had 
been sick of his restricted career as a member of a so-called progressive 
government which was not progressing in anjdhing, and it was an 
immense relief to him when an odd combination of chances had come 
in to throw it over. He had not worked against it in any conscious 
way, he had not really ridden for a hill, he had been strictly loyal to 
his chief and his colleagues; but he was sincerely rejoiced when the 
end came, regarding it as the end of a sham, long endurance of which 
would be for him an impossibility. He had a keen sense of humour, 
and had been amused at the idea of a man of his principles entertaining 
Ivoyalty under his roof—for his ideas and principles were unfavourable 
to Royalty as an abiding institution. But he was not a pedant even 
to his own principles, and while Royalty lasted he was quite willing 
that it should last and have all appropriate honours paid to it. Still, 
it was curious how, the moment he saw Koorali—of whom, to say 
sooth, he had not been thinking much of recent years—he remembered 
her childish talk about sovereignties and republics. 

The whole scene was behu'e Morse again; and his mind went back 
in an instant to all the memories of that morning, to many trivial 
circumstances and details—little bits of conversation and sympathetic 
looks—forgotten ever since then, and now suddenly brought back to 
fresh and living reality by the mere sight of a woman in the corner of 
a room. Does one, indeed, ever really forget anything? Does not the 
most evanescent, or seemingly evanescent, emotion make its indelible 
impression on the heart and on the memory, which it needs only the 
touch of the right influence to bring into vivid outlines once again? 

Morse remembered in a moment Koorali’s own name; but he had 
forgotten the name of her husband, whose face he recognized. He 
had also a dim recollection, now burnished up by the same process of 
association, a n collection of having heard that Middlemist had married 
his daughter to a young member of the Government, a man not 
politically prominent in his own time, but whom he had known slightly, 
and who had left an unfavourable impression on him—the very man, 
indeed, whom he remembered having seen near her on board the 
steamer that day. 

The two \vere together now. Crichton Ken way was speakirig to 
Koorali, and he had the look which a husband sometimes wears when 
he is obliged to talk to his wife in a large assembly because no one 
else seems to desire his conversation. Evidently he was commenting 
u[ion the people present, and she was listening in a preoccupied way, 
as though he had not said anything particularly entertaining. He 
did not look the sort of man who would take the trouble to be original 


^^AFTER LONG VEARSL 


29 

for his wife’s benefit, though there was a tinge of West End cynicism 
in his appearance. Morse observed KoorMi’s husband with an interest 
strong enough to make him quite aware of a feeling of disappointment, 
even before he remembered who the man was. Why, he could not 
have said, had he taken the trouble to analyze, unless it were that his 
fancy encircled Koorali, the bright wild-falcon woman, with a poetic 
halo; and there seemed something incongruous in this mating of her 
w'ith a good-looking, well-mannered man of the conventional type— 
straight features, sleek close-cropped head, blonde moustache, and fault¬ 
less clothes, all complete—who presumably had no more poetry in his 
constitution than nine out of any ten husbands entering a London 
drawing-room in the wake of a handsome wife. 

Morse was obliged to admit, however, that if Kenway was conven¬ 
tional, he could not be called commonplace. His long lean neck saved 
him from the stigma. That very neck, craning now, took Crichton’s 
gaze full upon an Australian magnate—Lady Betty’s Sir Vesey P]ym[)- 
ton—Avho sheared his sheep in tens of thousands, fattened on the 
traditions of a lately-acquired historic residence, employed paragraphists 
to chronicle his doings in society, and patronized, from a sense of a 
duty, such colonial small fry as agents-gcneral. Crichton moved away 
to speak to him, and at that moment Morse came forward and caught 
Koorali’s eye. 

A look of relief, welcome, and unfeigned delight came into her face. 
She made a graceful, shy movement, with both hands extended for an 
instant, then, as if checking the impulse, let one fall, and gave him 
the other in a formal greeting. It was no surprise to her to see him. 
She had known to whose house they were coming. She had only 
wondered if he would remember her, not expecting that he would, yet 
feeling a little pang when she found that he did not notice her. She 
had been dazzled by Lady Betty, in whom she felt a peculiar interest, 
and she had watched Morse as he paid his homage to the Loyalties, 
and did the honours of his house, realizing what an important person 
he was, noting the look of dignity and of conscious power which had 
deepened in him, and marvelling that she still felt the thrill of sympathy 
which had seemed so natural—though it was so wonderful now—w'hen 
she had sat by his side on the steamer deck, and chattered to him of 
her puny world. 

The thoughts of both travelled swiltly and met like the clasped 
hands. 

“ Koorali. Little Queen ! ” he said. He could not tell why the 
words came to his lips. He could not think of any others. He could 
not see her as a married woman, as the wife of I^Ir. Anybody. He 
could only see the bareheaded girl of the Australian morning, whom 
Judge O’Beirne had called “ The Little Queen.” It was as if a ghost 
had°passed by her, too. An indefinable change came into her face, 
lasting a second only, but touching him to the quick. He had struck 
a plaintive chord. The keynote of her life was a sad one. He knew 
it by a divining instinct that darted straight from him to her, and went 


30 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


down to tlie very root of things. It bewildered him an instant. Ue 
said, confusedly, “ I forgot. Time seems so short. A meeting on the 
other side of the ocean may be like yesterday; and yet a whole ocean 
of experience lying between.” 

“Judge O’Beirne is dead,” she said simply. “He died not long 
after—after my father became Premier. And then,” she added, with 
rather a pathetic smile, “people soon forgot to call me by that foolish 
pretty name.” 

“Even the pilots?” asked Morse. “ Surely they -were faithful to 
their allegiance.” 

“ Oh,” she answered, “ I didn’t go back to Muttabarra till I had 
been married a long time.” 

“ You married-? ” Her straight look forbade polite evasions. 

“1 married Mr. Kenway—Crichton Ken way. He was Postmaster- 
General iu my father’s Ministry—twice. Now they have made him 
Agent-General for South Britain.” 

“I think I heard—I ought to have kept pace better with colonial 
affairs—but the truth is that the times have been marching fast in 
England ; and so I suppose that I have lost touch a little of Australia.” 

“ Ah ! ” said Koorali. “ I understand why South Britain seemed 
such a little place to you, though I thought it so big—then. You are 
a great man now in the great world.” 

She looked at him intently as she spoke quickly but in a low tone. 
She was thinking of the part he played in that England which was 
now the greatest conceivable world to her. She was not awe-stricken 
by him; but only deeply interested. She was not wondering what 
memory he had of her, but only absorbed in her memory of him and 
of herself. Of the two, the Australian girl had the better of it. 
Koorali was not in the least embarrassed or conscious; Morse was like 
one who is labouring to speak of common things while his mind is in 
reality trying to find the track of some long-forgotten or half-forgotten 
idea. 

There was a rift in the crowd. Crichton Kenway had left, or had 
been dropped by. Sir A^esey Plympton, and was seen approaching his 
wife. Morse’s eye fell upon him. 

“I think that I had the honour of knowing your husband in 
Australia,” he said, and held out a hand of formal welcome to Kenway. 
“I am very glad to renew our acquaintance, Mr. Kenway. I con¬ 
gratulate you on your important position; and still more, ever so 
much more, on your marriage.” 

Kenway, while he acknowledged the greeting, gave a sudden furtive 
look at Morse. He was wondering whether Morse meant sincere con¬ 
gratulation, and whether he really was taken with Koorali and thought 
her attractive and presentable. Kenway was one of those men who 
only admire through the admiration of some one else. The price he 
set on anything was the price somebody else would have paid for it. 
He was curious to know whether Morse, the successful English states¬ 
man, the man to whom all eyes in England were turned just now in 



^^AFTER LONG YEARS: 


expectancy and curiosity, Morse, the husband of Lady Betty, could 
really have seen something to admire in Koorali. 

“ Your wife—I mean Lady Betty Morse ”—he said, in his clear, 
shrillish voice, “ has been kind enough to olfer to call on Mrs. Kcnwa 3 ^ 
May I hope that you will also kindly honour her with a call—some 
time? ” 

Koorali had not the least idea whether it was or was not the custom 
of English society for statesmen to waste their time in calling on 
women; but she felt as if Kenway ought not to- have made such a 
request of Morse. She said quietly— 

“ Dear Crichton, men like Mr. Morse don't make calls of that kind, 
I am sure. I don’t expect it. You haven’t time, Mr Morse, to make 
calls on everybody.” 

“ I don’t make calls on everybody,” Morse said ; “ but you are not 
everybody. If you will allow me, I shall certainly make an early call 
on you. I want to talk to you of all sorts of things. I want to ask 
you about my old friends in South Britain; I want to hear from you, 
Mr. Kenway, about all your movements out there.” 

Kenway had some cut-and-dried remarks to make upon the political 
aspect of South Britain. Morse listened in silent attention, but his 
eyes strayed. Presently Lord Arden came up to his host. 

“ Lady Betty sent me to you, Mr. Morse. I believe the Prince and 
Princess are going,” 

Morse introduced Lord Arden to KoorMi. “ I shall find you again, 
Mrs. Ken way,” he said, as he moved away. 

“ I think I know some relations of yours, Mrs. Kenway,” began the 
young man, in his easy abrupt way. “ I met them just lately abroad. 
They’re going to live in our county—Lady Betty’s county, I should 
say. Hasn’t your husband a place in it?’’ 

“Ah! My little hunting-box, the Grey Manor,” s;iid Kenway in 
an off-hand manner which did not somehow strike true. “ But you 
are thinking of the Priory-by-the-Water, the place my people lived in 
for generations. Unfortunately, however, the place passed away from 
my family before I became its representative. My younger brother 
has lately bought it back. It was probably that brother—Eustace— 
and his wife whom you met abroad.” 

“ Exactly,” returned Lord Arden. “ Your brother I met for the 
first time. I knew Mrs. Eustace Kenway very slightly last year, 
when she was Miss Gilchrist, and I was surprised to come across her 
as a bride. Your brother is to be congratulated; and you also, Mrs. 
Ken way.” 

“ We have only been a short time in England,” said Koorali. “ I am 
almost a stranger. I do not know my sister-in-law yet.” 

“You will take to her. Unlike most—” Arden’s slight pause was 
perceptible—“ most women who have a lot of money, she is perfectly 
downright original and unaffected. I hear that she has set about 
restoring the Priory-by-the-Water in magnificent style. We shall 
have one cause of complaint against her, however. I am told that in 


33 


^^THE RIGHT HONOUR ABLET 


her ardour for reform she has begun by scraping the outside of the 
fine old house—our dear time-worn stone of the Midlands. Mrs. 
Ken way, you should stop it. You don’t look like a person who could 
calmly see barbarities perpetrated.” 

Kenway laughed a little uneasily. He seemed glad of the diversion 
occasioned by the departure of the Royalties. The conversation 
dropped, and presently they lost I^ord Arden. The crowd seemed to 
thicken as people moved about more freely. The oppression of great¬ 
ness had been heavy. It was now as if a burden had been lifted, a 
strain relaxed. Tired dowagers could at last sit down and take their 
rest. The party broke up very soon. Lady Betty’s parties on off- 
nights at the House were always early. Morse had not returned to 
the drawing-room. Kenway, roving curiously round, saw him in one 
of the inner rooms in close conversation with a young diplomatist, an 
envoy from a great foreign State, sent specially over to settle—some said 
to unsettle—a serious question in dispute with England. He had been 
pointed out to Kenway; he was one of the lions of the season. He 
was quite a young man, handsome, with small, full, silky brown beard, 
and a sweet smile. He was bamboozling the English Government, 
people said. 

Kenway wondered why Morse should be so deep in conversation 
with the Special Envoy. “Can he be putting him up to dodges to 
w'orry the fellows now in office?” he thought. Kenway was very 
curious, and believed himself very observant. He was very observant; 
but one may be quick to observe and draw wrong conclusions. The 
monkey might, with the catspaw of observation, draw out sometimes 
a cinder instead of a chestnut. 

Koorali attracted no further attention, and Kenway, dissatisfied and 
a little peevish, took her away. The Americans still held the position, 
he ruefully reflected. Clearly, Australian beauty had not yet risen in 
the market. 


CHAPTER V. 

HUSBAND AND WIFE. 

It was a picturesque and a pretty sight. Lady Betty was sitting in a 
low chair near the hearth. On the hearthrug, quite close to her, young 
Lenny had flung himself down. Pie was at her feet; and, with his 
head partly turned round, he was looking up into her face with eyes 
full of admiration and devotion. Her hand was resting tenderly on 
the boy’s hair, which she was touching with a sort of caress. She was 
very fond of Lenny, her “ pretty page.” He was devoted to her. Per¬ 
haps with her tender feeling for him there was mingled the sense of 
regret that she was childless; that no boy of her own would ever stretch 
himself at her feet and look uf) to her wuth love and reverence. 

It was a pretty sight. So Morse thought as, returning after taking 


HUSBAND 'AND WIFE. 33 

leave of his last guest, the young Special Envoy, he stopped for a 
moment on the threshold of the drawing-room and looked on at the 
childless wife and the boy. A deep feeling of sadness, 
pel haps rather of dissatisfaction, came into his mind, however; and if 
men were really’- in the habit of sighing, as they do in books, Morse 
would have sighed. Partly he felt for the childless wife; partly, too, 
his feeling was for himself—not a selfish feeling, but yet a feeling for 
hiniself. No thought of jealousy, in the common sense of the word, 
could have come into his mind. Even if Lenny had not been so 
young, a mere boy in fact, he could have had no possible feeling of 
that kind. The sweet purity of Lady Betty’s nature would not have 
allowed a very Leontes of a husband to admit such a suspicion. But 
Morse found it brought home to his inmost consciousness that he was 
not all in all to his wife. A certain tender frivolity in her tempera¬ 
ment seemed to make an atmosphere around her in which he could not 
breathe. She loved to be amused, and to be amused with novelties; 
and Lenny’s open devotion was as a new toy to her. 

Morse remained on the threshold only for a moment, then he came 
into the room. Lady Betty looked up to him with welcoming eyes. 
She still kept her hand on Lenny’s hair, and Lenny remained in his 
attitude of affection and devotion. 

“ Come, Sandham, dear,” she said, “ sit down somewhere, and let us 
talk for a moment before this boy goes home. What will your mother 
say to me, Lenny, for letting you stay here so long?” 

Oh, she won’t mind,” Lenny said. “ And I like to stay for a bit 
when everybody else has gone. I say, Mr. Morse, I tvish you would 
take me for your private secretary. Won’t you prevail on him, Lady 
Betty ? He’ll do anything you ask him.” 

“ Will he, indeed?” Lady Betty asked, with a smile. “ Well, yes; 
I really believe he would; anything reasonable, Lenny—as long as 
I don’t interfere with his pet theories—and I don’t mind them. But 
yon are not quite old enough, dear boy, to be a great public man’s 
secretary just yet; now are you ? ” 

“Well, but when I am grown up?” 

“ When you are grown up, Lenny,” Morse said, with the peculiarly 
winning smile which had such a charm in it, “ I promise you I will 
take you for my private secretary—if you ask me 

There was a melancholy tone in his words which neither Lady Betty 
nor Lenny noticed. The boy leaped up from his position of prostrate 
devotion and clasped Morse’s hand in delight and gratitude. 

“ Come, now, I say,” he exclaimed, “ you are such a good one. Isn’t 
he good. Lady Betty?” 

“ I think him ever so good,” Lady Betty declared, and she turned to 
her husband a quick look of beaming affection. She got up, too, and 
stood upon the hearth in front of the great bank of exotics that filled 
the air with perfume. She unfurled her fan as if she were thinking, 
and she looked not unlike some rich exotic flower herself in her robes 
of Venetian red. 


34 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 

What was passing through Morse’s mind at that moment which 
made him shrink from this tribute to his goodness ? Did he not fairly 
deserve it? Alas, the truer of heart, the more profoundly conscien¬ 
tious, the more honourable of purpose and pure of soul a man is, the 
more likely is he to feel every now and then some strange pang of 
awakened conscience. In Morse there was a spirit of self-analysis 
which is never in itself altogether healthy. Not many of the outer 
public, not many even among his own associates and acquaintances, 
would have suspected that there was in the nature of that strong, 
commanding man, who seemed always to w^alk straightw’ay his own 
road, a sensitiveness too delicate, too easily touched and hurt, to allow 
him ever to be entirely happy. 

Lenny went home after a few minutes more of talk. 

“ That child gets fonder of me every day,” said Lady Betty. “ Some 
one suggested that I should decorate him with a badge. I don’t see 
wdiy the teetotallers should have the monopoly of ribbons,” she w^ent 
on, in her pretty inconsequent manner. “ Every one might announce 
their particular line in that way—white for the virtuous, pink for the 
worldlings, red for the vicious, and so on.” 

“ The white ribbons would soon get soiled, Betty.” 

“Except Lord Arden’s! I think, however, he might wear a dash 
of pink too. I’ll institute an order for my friends. Talking of orders, 
Sandham, it’s funny, isn’t it, that the most prudish country in the 
world should call her twm principal ones the Bath and the Garter ? ” 
she added, with a laugh. 

“ What capital spirits you have, Betty. You don’t seem a bit tired.” 

She made a little gesture. “ I can’t return the compliment. My 
good spirits are reaction after the strain of the evening. I was in an 
agony lest Masterson, your Socialist, should make his appearance, and 
take the opportunity of hurling the gauntlet at Royalty.” 

“You needn’t have been afraid. This is about the last sort of 
gathering Masterson wmuld attend.” 

“I don’t know. One expects something melodramatic from a 
Socialist. He came once to my ‘ Thursday afternoon.’ I must say, 
though, that he didn’t know I received on that day. Did I tell you? 
Two Cabinet Ministers and Mr. Masterson were announced almost 
together. I am not very nervous, you know, and I like a sensation— 
but, after Masterson’s speech about revolution and hanging a la lan- 
terne! -My dear, the triangular conversation was too funny. For¬ 

tunately, Lenny came in, and threw himself into one of his picturesque 
attitudes at my feet. That turned off the explosion. AVe jumped 
backw'ards into the Middle Ages. Isn’t he a sw'cet boy, Sandham ?” 

“ Who ? Lenny ? Yes. It seems almost a pity he should ever- 

Morse stopped. 

“ Ever what, dear ? ” 

“ Ever grow up to be a man.” 

“You gloomy creature! I wish that we w^ere in the Middle Ages— 
the real thing, not the aesthetic sham. I hate triptyches, and I can’t 


HUSBAND AND WIFE, 


35 

adore Botticelli. I’d make Lenny my page. I think he would be the 
very ideal of a lady’s page; don’t you, Sandham ? ” 

“ I think he would ; and I think you would be the very ideal of a 
charming chatelaine, Betty.” INIorse looked at her with a sudden thrill 
of affectionate tenderness. Lady Betty’s eyes sparkled with even more 
than their usual brightness; and she almost blushed. Morse seldom 
paid a compliment or said a pretty thing. 

“ Come,” she said, “ it is niee to hear you say that. You don’t often 
j^ay compliments to your wife, Sandham.” 

“ Still less often to anybody else, Betty.” 

“Yes; I know,” she went on gravely. “Sometimes I don’t think 
it would be any the worse if you were just a little more of a lady’s 
man, Sandham; it looks nice, I think, csj,X5cially in a grave sort of 
statesman like you. I shouldn’t be one bit jealous, you know. That 
reminds me—I hope you will be ever so attentive to my sweet shy 
Australian beauty. Isn’t she a little beauty—with her sort of wild 
melancholy, a kind of shrinking look in her eyes—like a wild animal, I 
think. She will be a success; she will take London society, you’ll find.” 

“ I don’t think so, Betty.” 

“My dear, what do you know about it? Fancy your finding time 
to notice what goes on in the kind of silly crowd, the ship of fools, 
that we women call society. Yes; she will be greatly admired. I am 
going to do all I can to make things nice for her.” 

“ I am glad of that,” said Morse, with a faint hesitation. “ I should 
like you to be kind to her, Betty; and you will find her interesting.” 

“ I would be kind to any one you asked me to notice,” said Lady 
Betty sweetly. “ But she will be taken up. Her very strangeness 
and shyness will be an attraction. What society would despise in a 
mere provincial, it admires in an American or colonial.” 

“ Quite true, Betty. You understand your public well. I only hope 
you and your society won’t spoil her among you.” After a pause, 
Morse said, with something like an effort, “ She and I are old 
acquaintances, Betty.” 

“ Yes, so I hear ; some one told me. Was it you, or she ? ” 

“ We were together on board the same steamer for four and twenty 
hours. That was the only time I ever saw her. Cf course, she was 
little more than a child then,” Morse added hastily. 

“ Yes; of course. Oh, Sandham, by the way—the Prince and 
Princess were very nice to every one to-night, don’t you think ? ” 

“ They always are, Betty. They were very gracious to me; but 
they don’t much like me, all the same,” he added, with a smile. 

“Well, dearest, they don’t much like your political goings-on, 
I suppose. Plow could they? The Prince rather chaffed me about 
you this evening. He wanted to know when you were going to start 
your red republican party, and try to set aside the succession. Of 
course, he wasn’t serious. But I think it is very nice of them to be so 
very friendly under all the circumstances.” 

“ Friendly to you and me, Betty ? ” 


36 “77/^ RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


“ Yes, dear.” 

“ I fancy they put up with me for the sake of you,” Morse said. 
And he took her hand in his. 

“ I dare say there is something of that; they have always been very 
kind to me. But, besides, I don’t believe they think you mean any¬ 
thing very dreadful, you know.” 

“ Dreadful ? How dreadful ? ” 

“ Well, anything very serious.” 

I am very serious, Betty.” 

“ Indeed, dearest, you are awfully serious ; I mean you appear so to 
the outer world. I find it hard to make people believe that you are so 
pleasant and boyish with me—sometimes.” 

“ And what do you think—you yourself, Betty—of my political 
goings-on, as you call them ? ” 

“Oh, well, Sandham, I don’t mind them, of course. I should like 
anything you did, and think it all right, in a way. Besides, it is ever 
so much more picturesque, and interesting, and all that, to be a man 
with new and odd ideas—a distinct, peculiar figure, don’t you know, 
than just to be the ordinary commonplace Liberal or Tory. I shouldn't 
care one bit to be the wife of a commonplace Liberal or Tory. Oh no; 
it is very charming and delightful as it is. I told the Prince so to-night. 
I told him I would not allow you to be a commonplace sort of politician. 
And, of course, I told him you meant no harm to anybody or anything; 
but that a man of ideas must have his ideas, don’t you know ? 1 

couldn’t endure a man who hadn’t ideas. One might as well be married 
to a woman.” 

They were still standing on the hearthrug, about to leave the room. 
Morse took her hand again in his, and said gravely— 

“ Betty, suppose my ideas and my political goings-on w^ere to end 
in making me detested by society; and even making you not so much 
of a favourite as you are—how would that be ? ” 

“But, dear, how could that be? Of course it couldn’t be. You 
wouldn’t have anything to do with any goings-on that w^ere not all 
right; and fancy your doing anything that could make people not like 
me! It’s absurd! ” 

“ There are some terrible evils in society, all round us, Betty. You 
see them yourself.” 

“Do I not? Do I not always say so?” Lady Bett\’s eyes became 
earnest. “ The dreadful poverty, and sin, and crime ? Don’t I always 
say, Sandham, that we, the rich, are not doing one half, one quarter, 
what we might do to make the poor around us more happy ? I try to 
do all I can-” 

“ Indeed, you do. No woman in London docs more, and more faith¬ 
fully and generously, Betty, in that kind of way. But you know, 
dear, I don’t believe much is to be done in that way. Even your own 
incessant benevolence and charity—well, I fancy*it does more good 
to your own sweet nature and your own soul, my dear, than it does 
.always for those who feel its material benefit.” 



HUSBAND AND WIFE. 


37 

Latly Betty, truth to say, ^vas sometimes hable to giving her kiml- 
aesses away to the wrong person. 

“Yes; 1 know I make mistakes now and then/’ she said, with a 
winsome smile and a still more winsome blush. “One can’t help 
making a mistake sometimes.. But 1 mean to become ever so much 
more wise and circumspect. And if I do encourage undeserving 
poverty sometimes—well, anyhow, I don’t think I fultil my steward¬ 
ship as badly as those wise magistrates who imprison with hard labour 
the men who go bawling about the streets, ‘Drink is the curse of man, 
the Lord deliver us from drink,’ and inflict a small fine on the landlord 
who grinds a living out of the disease and degradation of his fellow- 
creatures. There ! A crib out of one of your own speeches, Sandham. 
Don’t say I never read them.” 

A change, very slight, but still to be noticed, came over Morse’s face. 
The eyes seemed to deepen, and the features to become more impassive. 
There w^as a tone in his voice as he answered like that in which ho 
might address a child. 

“Never mind, Betty; don’t try, then, to be wdse and circumspect. Go 
on with jmur work in your own way; it can’t fail to do some good to 
somebody. But I w'ant to try to get bad systems put to rights; I 
fancy that is my work in this world, if I have any wmrk at all to do.” 

“ You think there ought to be a new organization of all our charitable 
institutions?” Lady Betty asked, with eager eyes. “I do, too. I 
quite agree wdth Lady Meloraine on that. Then, you are with us? 
That is just what w'e want. IIow I wdsh I had known ; I could have 
told the Princess to-night.” 

“ I want a new organization of ever so many institutions, Betty, as 
well as of your charities; and I don’t think your explanation would 
have quite satisfied the Princess. Never mind, dear; we must only 
do the best we can, each of us.” 

“ But if you would only help us,” Lady Betty said earnestly, her 
mind still occupied only with the idea of the reorganization of certain 
charitable institutions which Lady Meloraine and she were advocating, 
“ Lady Meloraine would be so delighted; and the Princess, of course. 
But we thought you never had time to give any thought to things of 
that kind.” 

“ I shall always find or make time to give you the best advice I can 
on anything that interests you, Betty.” 

He thought it of no use to make any further development of his 
political ideas just then, and was glad to put away the subject, into 
which he had gone somewhat impulsively. 

“ How very sweet of you, dear. But you are always so good to me, 
Sandham.” 

“ 1 shall be so good to you now, child, as to send you off to your bed. 
I have a few things to look up yet; and some memoranda to make.” 

“I wish you would take more sleep; I wish you would take more 
care of yourself. Well, I confess, I am sleepy; and I am to be up 
rather early to-raorrow.” 


38 


“r//is RIGHT honourable:^ 


She kissed him and went upstairs. 

Morse went into his study, where a light was burning. The study 
was on the ground floor, and opening out of it was a bedroom which 
he usually occupied during the sitting of Parliament, and at any other 
time when he was likely to be late and desired at once to be inde¬ 
pendent and not to disturb anybody. 

It was a comfortable room, though not especially luxurious, and 
Lady Betty had begged in vain to be allowed to transport to it some 
of her rare china and art treasures. Books lined three sides of it to 
within a few feet of the ceiling, and above the oak cases were trophies 
—American and Australian—calumets, mocassins, buffalo-horns, 
boomerangs, nulla-nullas, and other native weapons. A solemn grey 
Mrd, a stuffed native “ companion,” perched as uncannily as Poe’s 
raven above its owner’s particular chair. The low deep sofa was 
covered with an opossum rug. Above the mantel-piece hung an oil 
painting of a winter scene upon which the sun had gone down—a long 
flat stretch of landscape, snow-covered, with a straight road reaching 
to the horizon, and a clump of gnarled willows in the foreground. 
The sky was grey and cloudj'", except for the gleam which the sun had 
left; it was cold, dreary, desolate, yet curiously weird and suggestive. 
The only other pictures in the room were some rough sketches of bold 
Australian coast scenery, and these hung over the writing-table. 

Morse tried to settle himself down to a little work in the way of 
reading letters and memoranda. His habit was to read over a number 
of letters each night in this way, and make short notes on each of the 
sort of answer to be given to it. These he left for his secretary, who 
came early in the morning and disposed of them wdthout further 
troubling Morse. Correspondence of a more important and momentous 
character Morse kept for fuller consideration. There were many letters 
which he always replied to himself, and wdiich did not come under the 
eyes of his secretary. There were letters, too, of a more purely social 
order, which he always handed over to Lady Betty, who disposed of 
them along with her own vast mass of miscellaneous correspondence. 
To-night Morse did not feel much in the humour for reading letters. 
His mind, somehow, would not fix itself on their details. Many things 
h.ad happened that night to set him thinking. Suppose his projects 
should fail, how would the failure affect his wife, with her sweet bright 
nature, her beneficence, her delight in society, her unaffected devotion 
to the great personages whom she loved, her desire for everything to 
go so nicely and every one to be happy ? Suppose even the projects 
to succeed, how, still, would it be with her? Would it have been 
better if he had, after all, remained—in Australia ? 

When he got to this thought, he jumped up and would have no 
more of that. “ I have done right; I am doing right,” he said to him¬ 
self. “ I have a duty to do to this country vdiich I love; I can do 
something for her people ; I am not wrong.” 

Then he went resolutely at his letters again. Two especially 
interested him, now that he had put away all thoughts of other things. 


iy/F£ AND HUSBAND. 39 

The seal of one bore the coronet of an earl; the other had a resolutely 
democratic brotherhood of man and social equality about it, with its 
thick aggressive blue paper and the clear hand he well knew. lie 
opened this one first. 

“ Dear Morse,” it said, “you told me I might see you soon at any 
time. I will take my chance, and come at eleven to-morrow. I must 
speak to you. The time is fast coming, and I claim you as the man ; 
you must be with us.” The letter was signed, “ Stephen Masterson.” 

“ Poor fellow ! ” Morse said. 

The other letter was: “Lord Forrest presents his compliments to 
Mr. Morse, and will be happy to accord to Mr. ^Morse at noon to¬ 
morrow the interview which Mr. Morse has honoured him by request¬ 
ing.” 

“ Come, that is something at least,” Morse said. “ Not much will 
come of it, but he will see me, and we shall have left no stone unturned.” 

The two letters lay side by side, and the fact struck Morse as curious. 
He had much humour in him, and could stop now and then to be 
amused by the mere oddities of life. “ Side by side,” he thought, 
“ these two letters on the same subject—from the extremest demagogue 
and the last Jacobite peer; the two irreconcilables; the one just as 
hopeless, as unmanageable, as single-minded, as pure of purpose, as the 
other.” 


CHAPTER YL 

WIFE AKD IIUSBAKD. 

Crichton Kenway and his wife drove home almost in silence from 
Lady Betty Morse’s party. They had not very far to go. Sandham 
Morse lived at the lower end of Park Lane, and the house which 
Kenway had taken and furnished was in one of the small streets that 
lie upon the outskirts of the Belgravian region. It was too much on 
the outskirts to please Crichton Ken way, who was a person with a 
clearly-defined social ambition, but it had the advantage of being 
within easy reach of Victoria Street and the row of buildings devoted 
principally to the offices of agents-general for the colonies, and the 
perhaps greater advantage of being not too outrageously beyond his 
means. 

Crichton Kenway found great difficulty in living wdthin his means, 
not so much because he was given to thouglitless and lavish outlay, 
as because he had an exaggerated idea of the importance of money 
and the site of one’s house as a means of social distinction. He was 
in some ways almost parsimonious, and was annoyed if he did not get 
to the full his money’s worth. He would grumble at the needless 
expenditure of a shilling, though to serve an object he would launch 
into a style of living utterly disproportionate to his income. If, how¬ 
ever, he did not gain his object he felt himself defrauded, and was far 


40 


“77/^- RIGHT HONOURABLE.^ 

from taking the loss philosophically. He disliked to be thought poor, 
and to cut a less imposing figure than his neighbours. He was fond 
of his personal comfort, and could never practise small economics when 
that was in question. Thus it happened that his impulses were often 
at war. He suffered from the horror and inconvenience of debt as 
keenly as the most prudent of economists, while at the same time he 
was forced to live face to face with it, and had none of the capacity 
for reckless enjoyment of the day without regard to the morrow which 
characterizes the born Bohemian or the well-trained Rawdon Crawdey. 

He was not in an amiable mood this evening. He had been very 
proud of having compassed an invitation to Lady Betty Morse’s recep¬ 
tion, for he understood that she was a leader of society, and that she 
w'as married to a prominent member of the late Government; but, 
after all, he had not found himself far advanced up the social ladder, 
for he knew hardly any of the smart people who were there. Nobody 
paid any attention to him, and though there w'as a satisfaction in 
being within a few yards of Royalty, he did not see that practically 
the fact could be of much service to him. There was a faint consola¬ 
tion in the reflection that Morse had talked for some time to KoorMi, 
but it was evident that neither Morse nor Lady Betty had thought 
her worth making a fuss about. They had not introduced to her any 
of the be-ribboned men, or brought her to the notice of the great 
ladies; and KoorMi had not shown to advantage in the brilliant 
assemblage. She had looked pale, odd, a little scared, he thought. 
Her dress was not right. She had not that indescribable air of fashion 
w'hich belongs to the typical London woman. Even her jewels— 
which had lately come to her by- the wdll of a maiden aunt of Ken- 
w'ay’s, from whom he had had but poorly realized expectations, and 
which had afforded to the husband and wdfe some innocent gratifica¬ 
tion—looked poor beside the magnificent necklaces and tiaras that 
abounded in the room. She had shown no animation, no ease, no 
power of self-assertion. She would certainly not take the world by 
storm. He had believed in her reputation for beauty and originality. 
There was no doubt that in the colonics she had been thought a great 
deal of, and every one had prophesied her success in England. Ho 
had expected that she would make a sensation when she appeared 
among the right people. Ken way knew that to achieve social success 
it is absolutely necessary to have the entree to a particular set, and 
Lady Betty Morse had opened the sacred door. He had dreamed 
of Koorkli elevated to the first rank of professional beauties. Ho 
had dreamed of the approving glances of great personages. And lo! 
KoorMi had made her appearance, and no great personage had re¬ 
marked her; no one, indeed, except Morse, who associated her with 
Australia, had taken any special notice of her. Crichton was disap¬ 
pointed and vexed. He felt as a merchant might feel who has bought 
a diamond supposing it to be unique in size and brilliance, and who 
finds upon comparing it with other stones that it is only a very 
commonplace specimen. He looked at her furtively as she leaned 


WIFE AND HUSBAND. 


41 

back in the brougham. There was that dreamy expression which 
always irritated him, for it made him feel that her thoughts were far 
beyond the circle in which his own revolved, and that he could not 
follow them. It gave him a vague sense of inferiority, and this he 
always resented. A right-minded wife would see her husbainl’s 
superiority and bow to it. 

IL- said nothing, however, but pulled out his cigarette case and 
began to smoke. Presently the carriage drew up at tin ir own door. 
The night had come on wet, and Kenway as he got out observed that 
the coachman had forgotten his waterproof coverings and that his 
livery was likely to sutler in consequence. Koorali was awakened 
from a dream of her girlhood—a dream in which Sandham Morse, 
Judge O’Beirne, and the Little Queen going forth to see the world 
stood out with startling vividness—by her husband’s angry tones as 
he scolded the servant for his negligence. Kenway usually spoke 
imperiously to those in his employment, though he had always the 
conventional English squire’s “Thankye,” and pleasant s-mile ready on 
demand for the servants of his country hosts, or even for the inde¬ 
pendent bumpkin on the roadside or at the gate. 

Koorali got down alone, and stood under the portico while Kenway 
finished his scolding and gave some directions about ihe horse, before 
the brougham drove off. 

“Why didn’t you wait till T had got the door open?” he said, 
fumbling for his latch-key. “That’s how you get your dress spoiled, 
and your shoes—a night like this. You are as bad as Drake. These 
brutes never care how much I have to spend on keeping them decent.” 

Kenway went in first, and inspected the letters lying on the hall 
table before he lighted the bedroom candles. He looked over his 
wife's shoulder while she opened her letters. One contained a card 
of invitation to a reception at one of the embassies, and it restored 
Kenway’s good humour. 

KoorMi took up her candle, and was moving towards the staircase. 

“ Aren’t you coming into the smoking-room ? ” said Kenway, “ I 
have got a lot to talk to you about. 1 want to hear what you thought 
of the evening.” 

Koorh,li hesitated a moment, then followed him to his own den at 
the back of the house. It was a com ortable den, and had a good 
many things in it that bespoke luxurious tastes on the part of its 
occupant. In fact, it was in a wvay symptomatic of its owner. ’I he 
writing-table looked business-like, the papers were arranged and 
docketed with great neatness. Some pamphlets and reports lay about, 
and several publications relating to Australia and to current politics; 
among them the number of a review to which Crichton had contri¬ 
buted an article upon the annexation of New Guinea. He had not 
written it himself, but he had supplied the facts and get the credit 
for it. Crichton made a great point of the big Australian-Imperial 
Question. He cultivated views upon it, and hoped they might bring 
him into notice. There were not many other books or indications of 

4 


42 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE:^ 


study. Crichton only read what he thought might be of service to 
him in his career. His career was a very important (>bject to him, 
though as yet it was not very clearly laid out. He kept his eye oti 
the future, and at present the summit of his ambition was a colonial 
governorship. He wantfd to be a great man somewhere, and had 
sense enough to know that he could not, without exceptional advan¬ 
tages, be a great man in England. He wanted to make England a 
steppiug-stone, and to utilize his opportunities while he was Agent- 
General in order to ingratiate himself with the powers at home; for 
he knew that his appointment was precarious, and that Colonial 
Cabinets succeed each other very rapidly. At any time he might lose 
his post and the income it brought him. 

There were some guns in a rack over the mantel-piece, a set of 
sporting prints, and a hunting crop or two. Crichton quite realized 
the expediencj^ of being—while in the country—imbued with a manly 
and British love of sport, and of gaining what interest he could in 
that direction. He had already laid his plans for getting a footing 
in the particular county to which his ancestors had belonged, and in 
which was the ancestral dwelling that before his time passed into 
other hands, as he phrased it. He could not alford to rent a country 
place, but he had taken an old-fashioned farmhouse, which had in 
bygone time been a manor house, and had now a certain quaintness 
and picturesqueness quite in keeping with a modest establishment 
and aftectation of rusticity. Kenway could in imagination hear himself 
talking of “ my little hunting-box which is nothing to keep up; but 
in my old county, don’t you know.” Koorali had got to learn that 
Kenway did not know the county at all, for his people had left, it 
before his generation, and he had been brought up after a rather 
humble fashion in quite another part of England. But that was a 
mere matter of detail. 

The room, lighted only by a feeble gas-jet and the two little bed¬ 
room candles which Crichton and his wife held, had a lonely, dreary 
appearance, and that peculiar oppressive atmosphere which belongs to 
some rooms that have been closed for several hours, and are entered 
late at night. It is as though all the influences at work during the 
day had b^een pent up, and, as if unsympathetic to the incomer, were 
making themselves aggressively felt. On the other hand, w^ho does 
not know the indescribable, half-soothing, half-stimulating effect on 
the nerves produced by the air of a room closed and darkened and 
lately occupied by some one loved? After the big drawing-rooms 
in Park Lane, Kenway’s study seemed mean and small, and there was 
something about it w'hich gave Koorali the fancy that she was enter¬ 
ing a prison. She unconsciously drew a deep breath, and loosened her 
feather-trimmed wrap, which fell away from her bare neck and slim form. 

Crichton turned up the gas, drew forward the smallest of two leather 
chairs which flnnked the fireplace, and placed himself in the other. 

“ Sit down,” he said. “ What was Morse talking to you alx)ut ? 
You seemed to be having a long conversation together.” 


PVIF£ AND HUSBAND. 


43 


KoorMi put down her candle and sat do\^^l as he hade her. 

‘ We were talking of old times,” she answered. 

“ Old times! ” repeated Kenway. His tone was not meant to chill. 
It was often meant to be genial, yet to Kooiall’s sensitive ear it almost 
always had an inflexion of sarcasm. He pulled to him a tray on 
which stood glasses and spirit decanters, and poured some brandy into 
a tumbler which he filled from a syphon. “ There couldn’t have been 
so many of them to talk over,” he said. “ I thought you only met 
Morse once, when he was on his way home from Australia. I shouldn’t 
have thought that you remembered much about him.” 

“ J was with Mr. Morse for twenty-four hours on board the steamer,” 
replied Koorali. “ I remember it very wxll. I have never forgotten 
him. He interested me. I thought him like Napoleon.” 

“ fie Ao.s a look of Plon-Plon, especially now that he has got 
stouter,” remarked Kcnway, in that tone of vague depreciation which 
always irritated Koorali, though now she was instantly vexed with 
herself for feeling irritated. 

“ The meeting there—our talk—I don’t know what—impressed me,” 
continued K( orali. “ It all came hack very vividly this evening. I 
think it made me a little bit melancholy.” 

She spoke rather sadly; and she looked at her husband with soft 
eyes, that seemed to ask his sympathy. 

' “ Now I should like to know exactly why,” asked Ken way. “ You 
are so often melanchuly, that it would be a satisfaction for once to get 
at the reason.” He lit another cigarette, and then removed it from 
his lips to drink a little of his brandy and soda-water. 

“ I was such a child. I felt so eager to see life, and I fancied that 
everything good was going to happen to me.” 

“And haven’t lots of good things happened to you?” exclaimed 
Kenway, with energy. “Here you are in England, doing your season 
in London, and going to all the best houses. It’s more than old 
Middlemist’s daughter had any right to expect.” He laughed to him¬ 
self, as if amused at the incongruity. 

Koorali sat quite still, but her eyes grew brighter and harder. 

“ Yes, I know. You fancied yourself a sort of princess,” continued 
Kenway. “Oh, T remember very well, and that first year of the 
^liddlemist Ministry. Girls in Australia, if they are pretty, get 
utterly exaggerated notions of their own importance. It’s all a flash- 
in-the-pan out there—power, good looks, and the rest of it. There’s 
nothing solid like money or rank. Sandham Morse did well to come 
to England and try for the real thing, and, by Jove, he has got it.” 
Ken way leaned back in his chair, and with an expressive gesture 
shook off the burnt-out end of his cigarette. Koorali remained silent. 
“ You have no reason to be dissatisfied,” said Kenway, his thoughts 
going back upon themselves. “ It isn’t as though you had had money. 
If I hadn’t fallen in love with you, you’d have played second fiddle to 
your stepmother, and you’d have ended by marrying some beggarly 
oflicial or rough squatter. This is a good deal better than vegetating 


44 


^^THE RIGHT HONOUR ABLET 


on a cattle station. No, no, my dear, you have done very well for 
yourself.” Kenway laughed again. 

Koorali’s face had chang d. It did not look so chiMlike. She 
spoke now with an evident effort at brightness. 

“Admitted—in a grateful spirit. But, however brilliant one’s lot, 
Crichton, I suppose one may feel a little regret over youth that is 
gone ? ” 

“ Nonsense ! ” exclaimed Kenway. “ I’d lay long odds that you are 
not as old as l.ady Betty Morse.” He looked at his wife critically, 
and .‘^eeined to be drawing a mental comparison. “ It’s curious what 
a difference style and manner make in a woman! ” he added reflectively. 

“ You and Lady Betty are not unlike. I wonder I didn’t notice it 
biYore. You have the same-shaped head and face, and the same sort 

of complexion and figure-” He paused abruptly, then said, “Why 

don’t you go to one of the dressmakers or man-milliners who turn out 
fashionable London women, and get decently set up ? You look pro¬ 
vincial—or colonial, which is worse.” 

“Do you want me to be a fashionable London woman, Crichton?” 
asked Koorali slowly. “ 1 think it might be a little difficult to get 
some one to teach me ; but I can try.” 

“ I want you to make the best of yourself, to hold your own, to say 
the agreeable thing. I am afraid there is not much use in wanting 
you to be admired and sought after—like Lady Betty,” replied Kenway. 

“That would be a little unreasonable, perhaps,” said Koor^d, her 
eyes, with their straight clear look, meeting those of her husband. “ I 
have not had the advantages of Lady Betty Morse. I have neither 
money nor rank. 1 have not been trained to the great world. I don’t 
understand its ways. And-’’she paused a second—“1 don’t sup¬ 

pose that Lady Betty could be persuaded to take me as a pupil. You 
might ask her, Crichton, if you think that you can prevail upon her, 
and if you are very much afraid that T shall bring discredit upon you. 
You should have w'eighed all this, dear, before you asked a South 
Britain girl to marry you.” 

Koorali spoke with a suppressed bitterness, though her voice quavered 
a little. Crichton turned sharply upon her. 

“ You needn’t be so infernally nasty over aYhat I say to you for your 
good. I suppose you’ve seen enough of the world to know that South 
Britain isn’t exactly a school for deportment.” 

“ Oh yes, Crichton ; or, at all events, I ought to have learned it from* 
you. But I am a little bewildered, you know; and I don’t think you 
quite give me credit for trying to conquer my savage instincts. On 
the whole I think I deserve some praise for not having danced a cor- 
roboree before the Prince this evening. Perhaps it might have amused 
him if I had. Anyhow, it would have made him notice me, and you 
would have liked that.” 

Kenway did not understand his wife in this mood. He did not quite 
know how to take her. He got up on the pretext that the gas was 
flaring, turned it down, and then spoke to her in a different tone. 



WIFE AND HUSBAND. 45 

“ I dare say that you’d pick up things quickly enough, if you took a 
little trouble,” he said, seating himself again. 

“ It is^Lot so much a question of trouble, do you think, Crichton, as 
of time,” said Koorali in the same quiet manner with its touch of 
sarcasm. “ I am afraid I am too old to go to a school of deportment 
in London, though I can get taught to make my curtsy to the Queen; 
hut I will do my best to take advantage of such opportunities as 
to-ni^ht, for instance.” 

Crichton eyed her from beneath lowered lashes for a few moments ; 
but she sat looking straight before her into the empty fireplace. 

“ The fault I have to find with you,” he said presently, with his air 
of man-of-the-world philosophy and his look carelessly bent in another 
direction, “ is that you don’t hold your own, especially among the 
family. Every one is liable to slips, but one needn’t have them 
chronicled. It’s a mistake to play into people’s hands, and my rela¬ 
tions are too ready to patronize you and make you seem cheap. I 
don’t object to patronage, when it’s from my superiors, but I can’t 
stand it from cousins by marriage.” 

Crichton paused, glancing again at his wife. The disdainful droop 
of Koorali’s lips seemed to contradict a pathetic, slightly-puzzled look 
in her eyes. 

“ You mean your cousin, Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp. I do not think 
it matters much whether she patronizes me or not.” 

The clock on the mantel-piece struck two. She half rose with a 
gesture of weariness. 

“ Don't go yet. It does matter; it affects your position in the 
family. There’s always a lot of jealousy among relations. That’s the 
W'Orld. They’d sneer away everything that they haven’t gut them¬ 
selves. The only things that can’t be sneered away are money and 
social position. Eustace has been clever enough to pick up a Sheffield 
heiress, and so has got the one. Twenty thousand a year is solid. A 
man can feel his feet on it. You and 1 have got to take our stand on 
different ground, since we have been sold over the old aunt’s legacy. 
But it is not necessary to proclaim the fact that our inheritance con¬ 
sists of some bits of china and a few diamonds. Do you understand, 
KoorMi?” 

“1 think I do. I am sorry to have been indiscreet, and to have 
enlightened your cousin.” 

“Oh!” Ken way lifted his chin and drooped his eyelids in a manner 
equivalent to a shrug of the shoulders. “ The family would have 
found that out anyhow; but the family isn’t Society, though it would 
like one to think so. You are not the sort of person a statesman would 
come to fur advice, my dear, or a general either. You don’t know how 
to keep a iiosition when I have gained it for you by a little strategy or 
swagger. Don’t look so scorniul. A wise man knows how to use his 
t'-ols. Swagger as a tool is not to be underrated. It suits some people. 
It suits Kitty K’evile-Beauchamp. But I saw at dinner this evening that 
you had not taken her measure. You were stupid. You annoyed me.” 


46 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


“Is that possible?” asked KoorMi, with ever so slight a tone of 
contempt in her voice. “ In what way ? ” 

“ You made me appear ridiculous. When I spoke of the Morses, 
and said that we were going on there, you did not observe the change 
in Kitty’s face and take your cue. Kitty Kevile-Beauchamp knows 
to her cost that to get into that set is an achievement. You rose fifty 
degrees in her estimation. Why did you not let well alone? Were 
you obliged to explain that we did not know Lady Betty, and that we 
had been asked through the Plymptons ? A fool tells the unnecessary 
truth of to-day, which may be the lie of to-morrow. A woman of the 
world holds her tongue. That’s part of the lesson of London life which 
you have to learn.” 

Koorali smiled a peculiar sort of smile, and slightly lifted her eyebrows. 

“The unnecessary truth of to-day may be the lie of to-morrow? 
Yes; 1 see. I wonder whether the unnec'ssary lie of to-day might 
turn out to be the truth of to-morrow ? If that were so, don’t you 
think some men would find themselves becoming unexpectedly tellers 
of the truth ? ” 

Ken way looked curiously at her; a sort of sinister look it was. 
KooiYli’s dreamy eyes had a disconcerting way of seeming to see to 
the very heart of things sometimes. He kept his composure, however. 

“Well, Koorali,” he said, “a fellow who tells unnecessary lies 
deserves anything, I think.” 

“ Deserves even to have his lies of to-day come true to-morrow ? 
Yes; but in some cases that wouldn’t be a punishment exactly. And 
that seems a little unjust.” 

Ken way did not like this sort of thing. 

“Anyhow, Koorali, the point is this. You ought to learn the lesson 
I have been trying to teach you, and not blurt out before people things 
which it is neither necessary nor desirable they should know. Do you 
understand? You are quick enough to understand things when you 
like.” 

“ Yes,” she said slowly; “ I think I understand—I think I quite 
understand. I am sorry for my mistake of to-night. I ought to have 
learned my lesson better by this time.” She rose and took her candle, 
and pre]iared to go u]«tairs. She stood for a moment, holding her 
light with one hand and keeping back her draperies with the other, and 
she looked at her husband, awaiting his formal caress. 

The tone of her voice had struck uncomfortably on Ken way. There 
was, he thought, something uncomfortable in her expression also. It 
was at variance somehow with the girlish softness of her face, with the 
small, slender form in its lace robe that would not puff out here and 
cling in to her shape there, or assume the folds that fashion ordained. 
He looked at her, studied her, her figure, her dress. He was consider¬ 
ing how far she was qualified to play a decent part in the game wherein 
he hoped to win. She knew well what he was thinking of, and a look 
of sadness, almost of pity, came into her expressive eyes. 

“ 1 am going upstairs now. I am very tired,” she said suddenly, 


WIFE AND HUSBAND. 47 

and she went to her husband of her own accord, touched his forehead 
with her lips, and left him as if she would rather not give him the 
opportunity for another word. 

Koor.ali went slowly upstairs and into her own room. She put her 
candle down on the dressing table and turn d up the gas-jet above the 
toilet mirror, which was long and gave back her whole form. She 
gazed at the reflection in a dreamy pitying way. The small pale face 
and the deep dark e 3 ’^es did not seem somehow to belong to herself, but 
were a part of the brilliant scene she had left a little while ago—an 
inharmonious part, an incongruity among the gay crowd, the conven¬ 
tional smiles, the jewels, the talk, the lights, the distinguished men, 
and the glittering women. That little figure had been out of place 
there. The soul in those eyes was a lonely soul, and the real Koorali 
had been outside it all—a cold, starved little creature, who didn’t fit 
into the life which would have satisfied so many women, and who 
would never meet the requirements of those whom it should be her 
duty and her joy to please. It was as though she had jest missed the 
point of contact, yet her sympathies were quivering and bleeding. She 
was not dull, or blunt, or blind. She had a vague sense of capacity, 
an almost painful intuition as to the rights "of things—an intuition 
that frightened her. She wanted to see what was good and great, and 
only the meanness and the self-interested motives put themselves for¬ 
ward ; and this bewildered her, and she began to wonder in dreary 
depressed fashion if there were anything good or great in the world at all. 

She lifted her arras suddenly and let her bosom heave as though she 
were straining for air and liberty. With the sense of oppression, there 
was, too, one of vague, wild rebellion—not anger, not resentment. No 
one was wroeg. She had no right to complain of her lot. She had 
flown of her own accord into the gilded cage. She was well tended. 
Her master only required her to sing; and she could not sing to his 
liking. Her notes were false when she piped in the great world. 

Her imagination went drifting; the lights in the mirror multiplied 
themselves, and the background she had left formed behind her own 
white figure in the glass, while other figures blended with it. What a 
vast, confusing, wonderful world it was—this living London ! It was 
like a theatre in which every one had a part to play, with appropriate 
dresses, and speeches, and gestures. She thought of the show that 
evening, of the people she had seen, as a child might to whom the 
heroes and heroines of her story-bcok have appeared as flesh and blood 
—the Prince and Princess, the statesmen. Lady Petty, who sang her 
song so well, who seemed so entirely at her ease, who knew her part so 
perfectly. She thought of Morse, playing his part too. No wonder 

the Australian stage had seemed to him petty. And yet- She 

had a fancy that it was not always reality to him, and that there were 
moments when he felt himself out of place; as if an experiment had 
not quite succeeded. Once, when by chance she looked into his eyes 
straight, she seemed to see Australia gleaming there. Just one of her 
odd fancies. 


48 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


Kenway s step sounded in the hall below, and the bolts grated as he 
shot them for the night. Koorali started from her dream. She un¬ 
clasped her necklace, and smiled a little as she laid it down. She was 
sorry for Crichton that even his aunt’s diamonds had turned out less 
well than he expected. She took up her candle again, and, without 
waiting to unlasteu her dress, mounted the other flight of stairs to the 
children’s, nursery. 

Her two bovs, Lance and Miles, lay in their cribs. Lance, the 
eldest, sturdy and unimaginative, with freckled face and his fatlicr’s 
features, was fast asleep, -ihe bedclothes tossed off his robust little 
form. Koorali only paused to cover him again, and then, shading the 
candle, knelt by the bedside of the youngest, Mile.s, who was fragile 
and precocious, and like a girl with his silky curls and delicate features. 
He was a strange, thoughtful child, and was often ailing. 

He stirred as his mother watched him, and the light came on his 
face. He opened a pair of dreamy eyes, like hers ; and put up his little 
hand to her neck, looking at her in a half-awakened way\ 

“ Mother, you’re like an angel—I thought it was.” 

“ I’ve been to a party, darlinijc. Now go to sleep again.” 

But Miles raised himself, and gazed at her wiih troubled child-eyes, 
under which there were traces of a child’s stormy weeping, lie had. 
gone to bed in disgrace. The brothers had quarrelled. i\liles’s lemjtcr 
was fretful and uncertain. He was a little jealous of I.ance, who was 
his father’s favourite, and whose rough and ready patronage he resented. 
This evening C'richton had been angry with him, and the boy was 
sensitive. A sob shook him now. 

“ Mother, do you forgive me ? I want you to forgive me. I can’t 
bear you not to love me.” 

Koorali gathered him to her. “I love you always, my little one.” 
She kissed and .soothed him. 

“ Lance hasn’t forgiven me,” Miles went w^hispering on. “I wanted 
to wake him. I wanted to give him my'-nine-pins—to make it up; but 
he wouldn’t wake.” 

“You shall ask him to forgive you to-morro\v,” said KoorMi. And 
she lay down beside the boy. 

In a minute or two the tiny voice whispered again, “Mother, I wish 
Adam hadn’t been naughty.” 

“ What put that into your head, dear ? ” 

“ 1 don’t know. It’s all because of him. I’m so sad when I’ve been 
naughty. I don’t like it.” 

“ That’s just the good,” said Koorali; “ for if w'e weren’t sad we 
should lose being able to care; and there’s nothing—nothing so 
dreadful as not t<» care when we are naughty.” 

“ Do you care very much, mother, when you are naughty and father 
scolds you ?” asked the boy. 

“ I try to; yes, I try to,” said Koorkli, with a throb in her voice. 

“I dreamed about the Besurrection,” Miles went on. “Don’t you 
wish it was coming ? I wish 1 was in heaven. I can’t go to sleep for 


RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE. 49 

thinking of heaven. Mother, don’t you wish we could go there 
together now—you and me?” 

Koorali kissed the boy very gently. She restrained the impulse to 
press him passionately to her. There was an ache at her heart. This 
was all it came to! To the tired child, and to the tired young mother, 
life seemed nothing better than a pageant, and to turn from it a relief. 


CHAPTER VII. 

RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE. 

England had fallen upon gloomy days just now, most people said 
Indeed, it looked like that. Trade was depressed in an ominous way; 
agriculture was in what seemed uttermost distress; farms were lying 
unoccupied and idle all over the country; there was sullen discontent 
among the rural labourers; there was bitter, angry, loud-voiced discon¬ 
tent among the artisans in the towns. Now, to make matters worse, 
the shadow of a great war appeared to be forecast over the land. There 
had been a series of irritating, wasting, little wars with semi-savage 
desert races here and there ; now everybody said a great war was coming 
with one of the most powerful of continent d states. 

The fact was, that for some time many Englishmen had been 
longing for a big war with somebody—anybody. They were sick of 
hearing on all sides that England’s fighting days were over; that she 
could never again stand up to any enemy more formidable than an 
Egyptian Arab or a South African Catlre; and they were filled with a 
wihi desire to show that their country had fight enough in her yet. 
No mood could be more dangerous or less reasonable. One reason why 
Llorse was glad that the Administration he belonged to was broken up 
was because he saw th it if things went on longer in the same way 
most of his colleagues would go in for popularity and a war. Morse 
detested the policy which would provoke a war with such a motive. 
He did not believe that in this particular case there was any just 
ground of war; he did not believe the ^State was prepared for war. 
Finally, if 'war had to come, he did not believe his party could manage 
it as well as the other; and he did not wish them to have its fearful 
responsibility, suspecting that they were not sincerely convinced of the 
right in the policy he feared they •v\muld take up. General election^ 
were pending, and Morse hoped to be able before they came on to 
rouse a strong agitation among the working classes all over the country 
against war. In the meantime, however, he had grDod reason to 
believe that the new Ministers were determined to go in for war at 
once, and let the elections be taken after the first cannon had 
thundered. Evidently, the hope of the men now in office was that 
the constituencies would never change a Ministry while England was 
in a death-grapple with a strong enemy. Theref )re he determined to 
act at once. He conferred with some infiuential Radicals, and got 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


50 

their authority to strike a stroke for them. The Court circle was 
believed to be all in favour of war, but the more reasonable among the 
aristocracy were understood to have little sympathy with such a 
policy; and Morse was sure the working classes could be brought 
everywhere into a dcterm nt d opj-osition to it. If he were to make 
the first move, relying on the working classes, the chances were that 
all the aristocratic sections and their dependents would hold back from 
a movement led by a Radical, a supposed republican. But if some 
great peer could be got to speak out against the war policy, then 
Morse could lend some effective help from the other quarter. His 
belief was that the aristocracy and the Avorking classes combined could 
save the country yet, if only they could be brought to combine. It 
was with that feeling strong within him that he wrote to Lord Forrest 
asking for an interview. 

The day after Lady Betty’s party Morse was to receive IMasterson, 
thtn to visit Lord Foriest, and after that it was his intention to call, 
Ibr the first time, on KoorMi. 

Morse and Stephen Masterson had been friends at school and at the 
university. Masterson had started with greater advantages and far 
greater promise. He had succeeded young to a considerable fortune, 
and he showed great abilities. At the debating society he was one of 
the foremost speakers. Morse and he were friendly rivals. Young 
members generally preferred Masterson ; he had more imagination, 
they thought. Morse was very clever in caustic analysis and sarcastic 
reply; but Masterson had ideas, Masterson had a future before him, 
Masterson wmuld be a leader of men. 

Time had gone by, and Masterson now believed himself a leader of 
men. He considered himself to be at the head of the Knglish social 
revolution. He stood as a candidate for various constituencies and 
failed. It might have been better for him if he could have got into 
the bonds of a parliamentary life. He had married a young woman of 
humble birth, whom he dearly and passionately loved, and she died 
before they had many years of haj)piness; then their only child died, 
and Masterson was left alone. Perhaps it was the lack of her sweet 
controlling influence which allowed him to get all astray; for he had 
got all astray, s(,)ciety said. He had gone in for all manner of wild 
continental schemes of democracy, and had tried with all the fervour 
and passion of fanaticism to make exotic political passion-flowers 
flourish on English soil. It was he who had the happy thought of 
effecting a combination between Irish Nationalists anci cosmopolitan 
Red Republicans. The combination did not hold. That, indeed, is 
putting the failure rather mildly. The attempt at combination led to 
a hopeless quarrel, and Masterson left the Irish Nationalists to go 
their darkling way. After this he confined his eflbrts chiefly to Eng¬ 
land and Englishmen, and he endeavoured to form a revolutionary 
party among English working men. He spent his money freely in his 
propaganda; but he Avas not able to make it quite clear to English 
Avorking men in general Avhat his revolution Avas to be. It Avas to^pull 


RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE. 51 

down the dynasty, the aristocracy, and all the moneyed classes ; hut it 
was not part of the programme, apparently, to show what was to be 
set up when all these had been pulled down. Men called him vain; 
some mad, as the eloquent Claude Melnotte says of himself, and, like 
Claude iVIelnotte, whom otherwise he did not greatly resemble, he 
heeded them not. 

The old friendship between him and Morse had never faded or even 
flickered, although IMorsc had been such a brilliant success and poor 
Masterson such a ghastly failure. It was characteristic of the two 
men that Masterson did not hate Morse for his success, nor Morse 
despise Masterson for his failure. Somebody once said in Ma'^terson’s 
hearing, “ I never could quite make out Morse; ” and Masterson 
instantly said, “Make out Morse—you? why of course you couldn’t. 
Who ever supposed that you could make out Morse ? ” Some one said 
to Morse, “Is your friend Masterson a mere madman?” “A mere 
nwdman,” was the cool reply. “ He has spent a fortune in what he 
believes to be the cause of the people. You and I, my dear fellow, are 
not such fools as to do that sort of thing, are we ? ” 

“ I am at home to IMr. Masterson,” Morse said to his servant that 
morning. “ I am always at home to Mr. Masterson; but he is coming 
by special appointment at eleven to-day.” 

At the fixed hour Masterson made his appearance. He was a tall 
thin man, who had once been handsome. He was about the same age 
as Morse, perhaps a shade younger, but he looked full sixty. His once 
dark beard was nearly all grey; his face was seamed and lined all over; 
his eyes were keen, wild, and restless. His long lean hands trembled. 
He was very poorly, or perhaps carelessly, dressed. Yet he was unmis¬ 
takably a gentleman—a ruined gentleman. 

“ Good morning, my dear Morse.” He talked in a voluble, nervous 
way, and did not often, when he could, give anybody else a chance. 
“ I am so delighted to see you, my dear fellow. How is dear Lady 
Betty? I haven’t seen her for some time-” 

“Your fault, old man, not hers,” Morse contrived to strike in while 
klastcrson, who had been walking fast, was taking breath and preparing 
for a long delivery. 

“ 1 know, I know; just what I say. Kindness itself. Lady Betty; 
I always say so,” he exclaimed, still pacing restlessly up and down. 
“But I am one of the people—a democrat, a rebel, they say. It 
wouldn’t do for me to intrude upon Court gatherings or informal 
Calunet councils. Every one knows that Lady Betty’s drawing-room 
is a political meeting-ground; all the better for the purpose, because 
no one could accuse her of being a female diplomatist, and because you 
are—what you are. Oh, what might you not be, now that you have 
cut yourself loose from the mob of aristocrats and capitalists?” 

The demagogue paused for a moment, and, lifting Ids thin hands, 
e 3 ’’ed Morse with tragic earnestness. 

“ Sandham, Sandham, if you had chosen a wife as I would have had 
3 ^ou choose-” 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


52 

k. woman’s rights’ oratress or a shrieking female philosopher, 
instead of a member of our effete and corrupt aristocracy,” said Morse 
with a laugh. “Never mind, Masterson; we won’t discuss Lady 
Betty from that point of view, anyhow. Sit down, and let us talk in 
earnest.” He seated himself in one of the big leather armchairs, but 
Masterson did not at once take another. 

“ Look here! ” he exclaimed, still pacing restlessly up and down, 
“ I want just to say a few words to you. You are a busy man; so am 
I.” Poor Masterson delighted in believing that some tremendous 
transactions were always awaiting his coming for their satisfactory 
settlement. “ I have another engagement almost immediately, down 
at the East End—I should say seven miles from here. But yours is 
the more important, that I will say—the more important.” 

“ I haven’t any other engagement for nearly an hour,” Morse said. 
“I am always glad to see you; always glad to hear your views and 
projects.” 

“ They will soon be something more than projects. They will be 
great historical facts,” exclaimed Masterson excitedly. “You haven’t 
believed in me; you have said to yourself that I’m all gas and 
denunciation. But you shall believe in me, and what is more, Sandham, 
you shall help me to save hlngland.” 

He drew up a chair to the writing-table, and went on in his former 
tone. His manner was a curious combination of fussiness and rather 
melodramatic declamation; and the two styles seemed to alternate 
with each other. 

“ I should like to help yon in Morse said. 

“Thanks!” he said. “Yes, 1 know you mean it, dear old boy; 
ever so good of you. But you were always like that. Well, 1 shan’t 
keep you a quarter of an hour—this time, at least. What I want to 
ask you is this, Morse. You have broken away from your old moorings 
—God be thanked and God bless you for it!—Will you come with 
ns ? ” He laid his hand on Morse’s shoulder and gazed into his face 
with an expression of painful anxiety and entreaty in his glittering 
dark eyes. 

There was a moment’s silence. The ticking of the little clock on 
the chimney-piece w^as heard distinctly. Morse w\as looking at Master- 
son; but their eyes hardly met. Morse w'as thinking to himself; he 
was asking himself, “Is there anything in thjs? How, if he should 
not be the mere fanatic, and craze, and crank all men ot the world say he 
is? How, if he should have got hold of a true idea, and should come in 
the end to have a people behind him? He would not be for this war.” 

“Look here, dear old friend,” Morse said at last, “you know what I 
think of you, and I needn’t say anything on that score; but I don’t 
really know much about your cause or your objects or your following. 
I am not a thinking man; I want to be a practical man. 1 honour the 
thinking men; 1 respect even the dreamers. I am sure we should 
have but a poor and pitiful world of it if it were not for the dreamers. 
Their dreams of the morning become our realities of the afternoon. 1 


RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE. 


53 

know all that; but I haven’t time, and I suppo.-e I haven’t patience. 
Anyhow, I feel that that isn’t my line. I am good for nothing off the 
firm ground of practical, commonplace politics. Now, what I want to 
know is this: Are you and your people on the firm ground (-f p'ajti -al 
politics? Is 5 mur ideal attainai'le—in our time? Is it within possible 
reach in this next generation or so? I don't stop now to ask, is it a 
true ideal?—I take it on your word that it is. But, what are its chances 
at the present? What is your following? What numbers are behind 
you? What force of intelligence is with you?” 

Masterson’s bright eyes dilated. His nervous fingers interlaced as 
he listened. 

“Morse, you talk like a statesman and like a man. T could not 
have asked for better, and yet I might well have expected as much 
from you. All we want is to have our cause and our capabilities tried 
and tested. All I want of you is that you should judge for yourself. 
Come and study us; see if we have not the English people behind us. 
Come and see.” 

“ How can one come and see ? ” 

“Will you talk with some of our representative men? That will 
not put you in any false position.” 

“ My dear Masterson, I don’t care one straw what position I am put 
into, false or true, so long as I have a chance of informing myself as 
to the real strength of any movement which I am told is popidar and 
important. I am staking a good deal as it is; I am not afraid to risk 
a little more—if there is any risk. How can I see your representative 
people, and when V ” 

Masterson leaned his head upon his hand and thought for a little; 
then said, with a certain hesitation— 

“Well, the best time to see some of our best men would be on a 
Sunday evening. Would you mind ? Sunday is their free day. You 
see, Morse, our best men are not swells or smart people.” 

“My dear Masterson, I know perfectly well that you don’t now cast 
in your lot with swells and smart people. I know that you have 
deliberately come out from among the swells and smart people; and I 
don’t look much to them for the regeneration of England. I want to 
see yowr men.” 

Masterson’s eyes lighted "ith joy. 

“ The sooner the better! ” he exclaimed. 

“ The sooner the better, certainly.” 

“ Next Sunday evening ? ” 

“Next Sunday?” Morse said, thinking it out. “Next Sunday; let 
me see. Lady Betty keeps count of my social engagements for me; 
but, oh yes, 1 remember. Next Sunday, Paulton, tlie new American 
Minister, dines with us, and I take him on to the Universe Club after¬ 
wards. That won’t be very late, however. I could go with you then. 
Do your people mind sitting up late?” 

“They would sit up a week for the chance of a conference with 
you,” said Masterson, enthusiastically. 


54 


«r//^ RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


“ Well,now,look here; suppose you dine with us on Sunda}’’. We’ll 
go with Paulton to the Universe after; and then you shall bring me 
to meet your friends.” 

Masterson seized at the proposal. 

“I should like that of all things. I should be delighted to have a 
talk with Paulton. I did meet him once, in the iSenate House at 
Washington, years ago. He could tell me a lot of things that I 

particularly want to know. But-” and he seemed to demur. 

“ But, then, some of your people won’t care to meet me, Morse, any 
more.” 

“We have only Paulton and a very few others—people you would 
like to meet and who would like to meet you—on Sund»y; it isn’t 
really a dinner-party. Even if it were, what would that matter ? ” 

“Well, one thinks that it might perhaps embarrass Lady Betty. 
I am so unpojmlar, Morse, in what is called society, you haven’t an 
idea; people of that kind do so hate me! ” 

“My dear fellow, when, do you think, did Lady BeUy ever turn a 
cold shoulder to a man because he was unpopular?” Morse answered, 
a little impatiently. “ We don’t go in only for smart people.” 

Masterson threw a queer little glance at his friend. “ Lady Betty 
looks upon us all as so many play-actors,” he said. “ She composes 
her social circle as Bore might one of his big pictures. She doesn’t 
care what we think so long as we make up a picturesque background 
and don’t crowd her princij)al figures. But I wonder what she’d say 
if she knew that we were going to pull down her pretty institutions — 
if she thought that we were really g<jing to depose her dear Prince and 
Princess? I fancy she might turn the cold shoulder on us all then.” 

Morse’s fiice darkened. He looked annoyed, and Masterson was not 
too full of one idea to see that he had gone too far. He went on 
quickly— 

“At any rate, Morse, Pll be here on Sunday, and Pm much obliged 
to you for askiiig me. Then you will come and talk with my people. 
Morse, I am no prophet, but L can see that this may be a great day 
for England.” 

He rose from his seat, his eyes aflame with enthusiasm. 

Morse shook his head. 

“Don’t be too sanguine; don’t expect anything from me. You 
know that you have accused me of having lately become horridly 
practical, and unenthusiastic, and calculating. I don’t believe I shall 
be able to go with you; but it shan’t be said of me that I refuseii to 
hear what you have got to say.” 

“Thanks, thanks; a thousand thanks! That is all wo could ask of 
you just yet. Come and see and hear. The revolution is ready. It 
waits only for the man and the signal. You, are the man—not I. It 
is mine to agitate—not to lead. It shall be yours to give the signal.” 
He wrung Morse’s hand in gratitude, and there were tears in his eyes, 
'fhen he abruptly bade Morse good-bye. 

Mor.se had thought it more prudent not to say anything to Master- 


RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE. 55 

son about the prospect of war. It would be much better, he felt sure, 
to find out for himself in the first instance what the strength and what 
the spirit and purpose of Masterson’s party might be; if, in fact, it 
really was a political party at all, or only a knot of ignorant enthusiasts 
in a back room. 

Masterson went off in full delight. It was always his way to think 
anything gained which he desired to see gained; and now his mind was 
filled with the conviction that he had only to bring Morse face to face 
with his party in order to satisfy Morse that the people of England 
were with them, and that Morse’s place was at their head. He was 
utterly without selfish ambition; and having spent his fortune on his 
ideas, it would be the crown of his life if he might now say to his 
followers, “ Behold, I have brought you your leader; your heaven-sent 
leader, whose place it was my duty for a time to fill. I have brought 
you Sandham Morse, and now I fall into the ranks.” 

Morse could see all this well enough. He was thinking of it as 
he w'ent towards Lord Forrest’s house; he was turning it over and 
meditating on it in his peculiar way. Morse was sincere when he 
spoke well of the dreamers. For all his practical training he was a 
good deal of a dreamer himself. The moment the practical part of his 
mind went off guard, if we may ])ut it in that way, Saiulhain Morse 
instantly relafised into a dreamer. He had observed this himself, and 
was amused by it sometimes. 

Lord Forrest lived in a great gaunt old house in a great gaunt old 
square. The house looked somehow as if it ought to be empty; like¬ 
wise as if it ought to be occasionally visited by a ghost. One ex})ected 
to see a hatchment upon it, and % a curious association of ideas it 
brought Balzac and Thackeray at once to one’s mind. 

Lord Forrest never entertained, never had company of any kind. 
When his son had friends to dine with him—for Lord Arden tvas 
encouraged to amuse himself in any way he pleased—his father hardly 
ever made one of the company. When the friends were very intimate 
indeed. Lord Forrest sometimes came in after dinner and smoked a 
cigarette. Yet he was not by any means an ungenial man, and when 
in the mood for talking he was a very good talker. He liked some 
Avomen very much^ Lady Betty, perhaps, most of all. He would 
never go to her house when there was any stranger there; but he was 
often well pleased to go and have luncheon Avitli her tete-a-tete, or for 
her to come to his house and have luncheon with him. Of Morse he 
knew little more than the fact that he was Lady Betty’s husband, and 
was a very sincere and honourable man, but an extreme politician who 
was the idol and hope of parliamentary democracy. 

Lord Forrest Avas looked up to by everybody as a man of great 
ability, and, apart from his own peculiar vieAvs, principles, and pre¬ 
judices, a man of great judgment and force of character. His territorial 
influence was A\ast; his political influence might have been vast if he 
had chosen to keep it in any manner of exercise. But he took no part 
in ])olitical life noAv; he had altogether given up attending the House 


'‘^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.^ 


56 

of Lords. He had only once spoken in that House, and that was when 
some sudden and unexpected -debate brought up a question concerning 
the Conservative party, its hhtorical po'^ition, and its foreign policy; 
then he rose and spoke for more than half an hour, astonishing every 
one who heard him by the singular power and eloquence which he dis¬ 
played, and by his scorn alike for the modern Tory and the modern 
Whig. There was a cold clearnes'^ about his argument which reminded 
older members of Lyndhurst, until towards the end he warmed into a 
sort of half-poetic impassioned style in denunciation of the foreign 
policy of both parties, which recalled some of the bold and thrilling 
bights of Lord Ellenborough. When he sat down, every peer felt 
convinced that a new and a great career was opening. Lord Arden, 
much younger then, and just returned from wandering in the South 
Seas, happened to come in front of the throne where privy councillors 
and the sons of peers are privileged to stand. He was at once struck 
with the argument, the eloquence, the style of the speaker. But the 
place was crowded, he could not see well, and did not know until the 
speech was done that it was spoken by his father. It was Morse who 
told him; Morse was standing in front of him. Since that unexT)ected 
display Lord Forrest had never spoken, and only once appeared in the 
House of Lords. 

Lord Forrest did not, however, discourage his son when Lord Arden 
desired to become a member of the House of Commons. He gave him, 
indeed, all the help and encouragement he needed; but he did not 
afterwards talk much with him about politics and his parliamentary 
career. Nobody knew why Lord Forrest kept himself thus apart from 
active life. Feojjle talked of some great disaj)pointment which had 
come on him ; but nobody seemed to know what it was or to have any 
particular reason for believing that anything of the kind had really 
iiapj)encd. Every one knew that he detested both the great political 
parties, and that he denied the right of the reigning family to sit on 
the English throne. He was still a dgvoted adherent of the Stuart 
cause. Lord Forrest, be it understood, was not merely a sane man, 
but a man of sonnd sense and clear understanding. He was well aware 
of the fact that he was living in the nineteenth century, and that the 
lineal descendant of the last Stuart king no longer looked on the earth. 
He had neither hope nor purpose of dethronii g the reigning family. 
But he denied that because he lived in the nineteenth century he was 
bound to accept all the nineteenth century’s ways; and he refused to 
see that because a certain dynasty was firmly established on the throne 
he was coi demned to allow it to become established also in his con¬ 
science. Therefore he refused to join in any acknowledgment of a 
levolution wliich he believed to have been impious, or of a throne 
which he believed to be set up in opposition to divine precept. A 
wrong he insisted was a wrong always. There was no statute of 
limitation to give it legal sanction. A tolerant man as regarded others, 
he was rigid in ruling himself; a?id he would not conform to the ways 
of the time. So he lived his own life a] art. He travelled, he read, 


RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE, 57 

lie enjoyed scenery and skies, and sunrises and sunsets; he loved art 
and antiquities and curios ; he was singularly well acquainted with 
history and with literature; he was a linguist and even a scholar, 
reading new books as well as old, and not scorning even to road the 
daily papers; but for the rest living his own life almost as completely 
as though he were a hermit in the Thebaid. 

As ^lorse came up to Lord Forrest’s heavy stone portico and was 
about to ring, the door opened, and Lord Arden came out. The young 
man, who, notwithstanding his occasional diatribes against social shams, 
was shy like his father, slightly coloured on seeing Morse. 

They exchanged a word or two of formal civility. “ I know my 
father is expecting you,” Arden said; “he is in his study. You don’t 
know the way, perhaps. Let me show it to you.” 

He showed Morse the way and then left him. 

“That young man doesn’t like me,” Morse said to himself. “I 
know it.” He would rather, somehow, that Lord Arden had not seen 
him there, and had not known anything of his coming. “ Of course 
he will tell Betty he saw me here, and she will wonder why I came 
here, and what I could want of old Forrest—who is fond of her, but 
never made the smallest approach to me; and I couldn’t make it all 
clear to her. She wouldn’t understand me.” 

All this crossed his mind in the few seconds which passed while he 
was entering Lord Forrest’s study. He had never been there before, 
and just now his mind was too full of anxious thought for him to 
observe the indications the room gave of the virtuoso and man of 
letters. Lord Forrest’s study suggested a combination of the Hotel 
Cluny and the library of some old Italian palace. It was full of 
(Uiriosities, rare books, old miniatures, and bric-a-brac arranged with 
the loving care of a connoisseur, if not the taste of a woman. The 
li.irniture was all beautiful and quaint, some of it inlaid, none of a later 
date than the Kegency. On the mantelpiece was a clock by Bouchier, 
unique of its kind. Here was a wrought iron frame with a medallion 
likeness in repousse silver of Marie Antoinette; there a Catherine II. 
gold snuti-box, with enamel paintings by Van Blarenberghe, which 
had been bought out of a celebrated collection. Lord Forrest was 
standing before a plaque of Gubbio ware painted with a Madonna, gor- 
f^eous in colour, full of gold lustre and the inimitable ruby red, the 
undoubted work of Maestro Geoi'gio, as seemed conveyed by the delicate 
satislaction with which its owner contemplates it. 

Lord Forrest turned as his visitor entered. He was a tall, stooping, 
but stately old man, with a small white beard, peaked in a fashion 
that suggested the wearing of an Elizabethan ruff. His hands Avere 
very sniall and white, and somewhat shrivelled. His eyes were a deep 
dark, contrasting curiously with his white hair and beard and eyebrows. 
The eves did not seem those of a man born to bo a recluse and a 
di-eamer, although the shy, reserved, almost shrinking manner would 
have "iven evidence to any keen observer of the sort of life w’hich had 
for ySirs been contracting round that wasted bice and figure. Lord 

5 


58 ^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 

Forrest came forward with dignified cordiality, and addressed some 
welcoming phrases to his guest—at first with a perceptible hesitation, 
which he conquered and banished by an equally perceptible effort. 
Then he spoke with great deliberation and distinctness, every syllable 
falling on the ear like the sound of a drop of water. 

“I am much honoured by a visit from Mr. Morse. I do not say 
this merely, Mr. Moi se; I feel it. I feel, too, that I ought to have 
put myself more often in the way of seeing the husband of a very dear 
young friend. But I am a strange and lonely man, Mr. Morse, and 
my odd habits grow on me.” 

Morse’s answering smile seemed peculiarly sweet, because when he 
was approaching the old peer there was something commanding in his 
air, and the expression of his face was more than usually resolute. 

“I am much obliged to you, Lord Forrest,” he said. “I know of 
your ways from my wife; and if I didn’t, I should feel rather more 
courage than I do with regard to the object of my visit.” 

Lord Forrest bowed and seated himself, motioning Morse to a chair 
and waiting for him to go on. 

“ May I ask. Lord Forrest, that you will consider as strictly private 
what I may say to you—in the event of your not seeing your way to 
agree to what I propose ? ” 

Lord Forrest’s impassive look changed for a moment to one of alert 
interest. Then he became coldly dignified again. 

“ I readily give that promise. No one who has heard anything of 
Mr. Morse can suppose he is a man to seek out or to offer unnecessary 
confidences.” 

Morse paused a moment, and looked steadily at his companion. 

“ Thanks, very much. I shall come straight to the point. You are 
not fond of much talking anj’’ more than I am. Look here. Lord 
Forrest, you do not mix much in the active world, but you love your 
country, her people, her honour, and her interest ? ” 

“Very dearly; you do me no more than justice.” Lord Forrest did 
not express the slightest impatience in look, gesture, or word. He 
did not seem as if he wished to ask, “What is all this coming to?” 

“Very well. You are not content with the present condition of 
things in England ? ” 

“Far from it. Who that loved England could watch her decay 
with content ? ” 

“You see, of course, that we are drifting into a great war, and that 
we are in the wrong ? ” 

“I cannot help seeing it.” Lord Forrest bent a little forward, his 
voice took a sharper tone. “ I see it with pain. I must say also, Mr. 
Morse, your people were drifting into a war just as much as these men 
now in office.” 

“ I know it; I admit it to the full. That is the curse of the present 
system. Our fellows wanted to be popular. These fellows in now 
want to go one better. They will provoke a war, I firmly believe, 
before the elections, if th^’y can, in order to keep in olfice.” 


59 


RED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE. 

“Yes; I dare say. It is a shame and a scandal. But I have no 
doubt your forecast of the situation is perfectly just.” 

“ You know,” continued Morse, “how easily a war spirit can be got 
into force. Some snub to our ambassador, some scrimmage on a frontier, 
a few leading articles about the flag of England, and there you are! 
We shall have the man in the streets shrieking about the honour of 
England, and the bald clerk on the top of the Islington omnibus insist¬ 
ing that the Ministry must declare war or resign.” 

Lord Forrest smiled a faint smile. 

“ Mr. Morse, for a Radical, doesn’t seem quite a believer in the super¬ 
human intelligence of the lower middle class,” he said. 

“ I don’t believe in the superhuman intelligence of any class. But 
in this instance 1 am sure the working men are all right, and I fancy 
the best of your class. Lord Forrest, are right enough also. 'J he ques¬ 
tion is, can we act together ? ” 

Lord Forrest stroked his pointed beard with one thin nervous hand. 

“ I am sure 1 should have no objection. I hope, Mr. Morse, you 
don’t think 1 have any paltry prejudice against the working class, or 
any disinclination to go heart and hand with them ? I mean, of course, 
if there were anything I could do, which there is not, I am afraid.” 

“Yes; there is something you can do,” Morse said bluntly. 

“ What is that, pray ? ” 

“ Go down to the House of Lords, make a speech—moving for papers 
or asking a question, or anything of the kind. Denounce the policy 
which is now conspiring to make a war in order to keep in office. 
You will find the best men in the army and navy with you, for they 
know—who could know so well?—that we are not prepared for war. 
We Avill support you—my Radical working men. I will strike the 
same note in the House of Commons, and it shall be echoed from a 
hundred platforms. Between us we shall kill that war, and perhaps 
the sort of policy which engenders it.” 

Lord Forrest was silent for a moment. 

“ Have you considered, Mr. Morse, what responsibility they would 
take on themselves—when the general elections were over, I mean— 
who had killed that war policy ? ” 

“ I have; of course, I have. I should never have come to see you 
if I had not. If we fight the elections on this platform, and if we win, 
then we must take the responsibility. You must form an Administra¬ 
tion, utterly independent of party. I will support you—I will join 
you, if you like.” 

The two men looked straight into each other’s eyes. Lord Forrest 
was startled. Yet he evidently did not wish to show how strongly the 
projiosition had affected him. His face would have been a curious 
study. He did not speak. One elbow'was resting upon a table beside 
his chair. He made a movement and a little silver patch-box on the 
table rolled to the ground. He picked it up before he answered. 

“la Prime Minister I ” he said at last. “ I think,” he added slowly 
“that at this crisis England needs a stronger l)ulwark.” 


6 o 


^^TIIE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


^lorse rose from his chair and stood hy the hearth. “ Are we not/' 
he began with energy, not het ding Lord Forrest’s protest—“ are we 
not despised abroad, and miserable at home? Have we not drifted 
into a policy of petty, paltry, never-ending wars with wretched half- 
civilized races, whom we massacre, no one knows why ? Are not our 
people at home cruelly taxed and miserably poor ? Isn’t trade pining? 
Js not agriculture ruined? Is there not a social revolution seething 
around us and beneath us ? Have we not a horde of the poor in every 
quarter and every street, who, if they could only find a common watch¬ 
word and make a common cause, would sweep olf the face of the earth 
the wretched sham we call our civilization? Are not these things 
true? Do 1 exaggerate ?” 

“These things are true—too true; and you do not exaggerate, not 
in the least. But what do you propose to do? whom do you 
blame?” 

“ Lord Forrest, I blame you, and I blame myself, and I blame every 
man Avho has any influence in this sinking country and does not exert 
his influence to put a stop to the wretched system of party govern¬ 
ment which m-ikes the fate of a whole people only a stepping-stone to 
oflice. The mass of the people must be brought into touch with the 
Government before anything can be done for the prosperity or the 
honour of this country. Well, I have, of course, ideas of my own 
which I couldn’t expect you or any man of your class to share. I 
have lived and been an active politician in the United States and in 
some of our colonies; and I have got to understand the value of 
government by the ])eople. I am a republican in principle, Lord 
Forrest; but I luven’t come to talk to you about that. 1 have come 
with quite a dilferent idea—^just to fight against this criminal scheme 
of war. I am pretty strong, I think, with what we m iy call ‘ the 
people’ for want of any better description. It sounds too like a phrase 
from a Kadical stump-orator or a Radical Sunda}’- paper; but it con¬ 
veys a distinct meaning. I am very strong with the peo]ile, and after 
the next elections shall be much stronger. Very well! You are very 
strong with the aristocracy, or could be, if you liked. I put aside my 
own ideas for the present, and I ask you, Will you join with me and 
help me to secure ] eace for England, and with peace the inestimable 
blessing of a Government which shall have nothing to do with party, 
and will at least govern the country for the people until the time comes 
when it can be safely governed by the people? ” 

Morse said all this in a low, deep tone, with no gesture of any kind ; 
the intensity of his earnestness only showing itself in his eyes and in 
a certain quivering of the veins in his strong hands. He had stood up 
when he was beginning to speak, but it suddenly seemed to him as if 
to talk standing up had too much of a theatrical aspect, and, after 
a minute, he quietly resumed his seat and went on with what he had 
to say. 

Again Lord Forrest stroked his beard as if in deep thought, and his 
white brows bent over his dark eyes, which gazed fixedly at the Gubbio 


6i 


KED CAP AND WHITE COCKADE, 

Madonna, iheir lustre encouraging Morse to hope tliat he had inspired 
the recluse with thoughts of action. 

“Are you really serious, Mr. Itlorse? Do you really ask me—me, 
of all men in the world—to go into public life and to take part in a 
Governm< nt V ” 

“ Precisely, Lord Forrest; that is what I do ask you to do. In all 
your class you are the only man who could do what 1 want dorse. 
You were never a professional jsolitician; all who know you or any¬ 
thing of you would trust you to the full. The people, as 1 call them, 
think highly of you, the poor all adore your son ; your great ability is 
known everywhere, and it is all the better that it hasn’t been shredded 
away in a lilt- of isolitical strngg e.” 

Lord Forrest made a gestuie of deprecation. ^lorse went on, “ Only 
tell me to-dsiy that you are willing to take the lead of an Administra¬ 
tion which is to have no concern with party, and 1 will tell all those 
over whom I have any influence that they are Isest serving their 
country when thty insist on putting you at the head of aflaiis. All 
the strength I have shall be yours. If you desiie it, and will acci pit 
my services, 1 will serve utider you. Come, Lord Forrest, think it 
over, at least. The peoi le of this country do not wh. lly hate and 
des])ise their own ari-bciacy—yet. Lei them come together; give 
them a chance. You are the only man who can do it.” 

Lord Forrest rose abru| tly, and made a few paces forward and back 
again. Morse reinaiiud waiting the effect of his words. 

“Mr. Morse, 1 am, 1 might ahno.-t say, bewildered. You are a 
leading man in p-ditics, a jiractical man, a man of great ability and 
indut uce. What you say must, therefore, have something in it worth 
the attention of any one; and yet I cannot undeistand all this. 
Remember that 1 have never taken any piart in politics. 1 know 
uoihing of the management of jiuhlic business.” 

“'I'hat is e.xactly why we want you.” 

“ We ? Are there others ? ” 

“ Yes. 1 have not ventured to make this appeal to you on my own 
part merely. 1 did not think it right to Sj eak to you until I could be 
certain that I spoke lor others as well, and that 1 could give you all 
the strength and support I am now able to offer. I can offer to you, 
Loid Forrest—to you, who are, I believe, in principle, a strong 
reactionary—the sup) ort of the great mass of the democratic party in 
thia country. '1 hey look to you, not as a reactionarv, but as a high- 
minded n an ; as a man < f c< mnianding abilities and influence; a man 
( f authoiify. We are sick of jiarty government. We believe it has 
degiaded us and weakened us; kejit our poor poor, and our ignorant 
ignorant. We ask you to try a better system, and we say that, 
reactionaiy though you be, we, the tn e democrats, will trust in you 
and g ve you our most coidial suiipiort, and call fur you from every 
platform in the country.” 

“ Anel you, Mr. ^Morse,” Lord Forrest said, with a grave and 
gracious smile, “ you declare yourself willing to take office with me 


62 


“ 77 /^ RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


in an Administration; you, who people say have only to'wait for 
the general elections to become the Radical Prime Minister ? ” 

“ I am willing to take oflice with you, under you, to take any office, 
and to postpone my Radical purposes until we shall first have saved 
the State.” 

“I wonder how many of my friends would believe this if they were 
to hear of it on any authority but that of you or me ? Now, Mr. 
Morse, I will answer you. Well, I cannot but feel greatly compli¬ 
mented and greatly honoured by what you have said of me, and by the 
confidence which you are willing to place in me. But you have over¬ 
rated altogether my abilities and my infinence. I am quite unequal 
to a part such as that which you are kind enough to think I still might 
])lay. Twenty years ago; ten years ago ; perhaps even five years ago 
I might have had the mental and bodily strength ; I might even have 
had some of the inclination, Mr. Morse; but then, as now, there would 
have been one insuperable difficulty.” 

“ I have heard something of th;it,” Morse said; “ but surely, Lord 
Forrest, a mere scruple, a sort of punctilio, of that kind, is hardly 
serious enough to prevent a patriotic Englishman from doing a dut}'’ to 
his country V ” 

“ It is not a scruple or a punctilio with me, Mr. Morse; it is a set 
and fixed principle. I can hold no office under a dynasty made by a 
revolution. I respect the reigning sovereign for her personal virtue 
and her great good-will to her people ; I respect all her family because 
of my respect for her: but I cannot in my conscience do any act of 
homage or recognition to the House of Hanover. It is impossible, Mr. 
Morse. I am not an opportunist.” 

“Nor I,” Morse said almost roughly; “but surely we must take 
realities as we find them. Here is the House of Hanover; we have 
nothing to jiut in its place.” 

“No? 1 had always understood that Mr. Morse would, if he could, 
put something in its place ? ” 

“A republic? Yes Lord Forrest, certainly, with all my heart; I 
would if I could. But I don’t see much chance just at the moment, 
and in the meantime I think we must do the best we can for the 
country with the means at our hand.” 

“Your case is different, mine admits of no argument. Y'ou are 
young, you are strong; you have your place and your work in politics; 
you are a distinct power and an influence. Even in my hermit life I 
find some sound of your career borne in upon my ea- s every now and 
then, as a lonely man in a study or an invalid in his bed might hear 
the sounds of a military band marching past. Y^'ou may well think 
you are bound to make the best of things as they are. But I have no 
call to politics; I have given up all place in political life. I do not 
feel that I have any “ mission,” if I may use that rather grandiloquent 
word. I do not believe I. have any longer the capacity to do any 
real service to the country. I don’t believe I, or you and I together, 
could prevent this war; and I may safely indulge my scruples, even if 


KOORALI AND HER REEDS. 63 

they were no more than scruples. No, Mr. Morse; it cannot be. 
Deeply as I feel the honour you have done me, I must refuse.” 

“ I am sorry,” Morse said bluntly, and he got up. 

“But you are not sorry that you have come to see me, I hope? 
You are disappointed, no doubt; but not sorry that we have had this 
talk together?” 

“Certainly not. Lord Forrest; and I don’t know that I am even 
disappointed; for 1 did not really expect that 1 should be able to pre¬ 
vail on you. But I thought I would do my best, and at least leave no 
stone unturned.” 

“ I am very glad we have met,” Lord Forrest said, rising; “ we 
understand each other—for the first time. I have heard you spoken of 
as an ambitious and self-seeking man. I now see that you are a patri¬ 
otic Englishman; 1 respect you; and I shall always believe in you, 
whatever tongues may speak against you.” 

They parted without many more words. Morse went away much 
impressed by the futile chivalry, the heroic scruples, the inflexible, 
hopeless purpose of the old man; the last surviving champion of the 
Jacobite lost cause; the man who was faithful to its memory when 
nothing but a memory of the vaguest kind was left. It had been an 
effort to him to make up his mind to go to Lord Forrest, whom he 
only knew through Lady Betty, and of whom he knew that Lord 
Forrest would not have him Lady Betty’s husband if he could. Truth 
to say, Morse felt sometimes a little “sat upon” by his wife’s royal 
friends and noble relatives; and a little inclined to let the spirit of 
republican democracy rise up within him in aggressive self-assertion. 
But he stifled his objections, and he sought an interview with Lord 
Forrest in the honest belief that it would be well for the country if 
a Ministry on a new princijle could be formed under such a man, and 
would speak bravely out for peace. 

“ Well, I have done my best,” he thought; “ and now I am free 
again to walk my own way. I must see whether there is anything to 
come of Masterson and his democrats. I doubt if they have any 
strength behind them ; but let us see. I wish to Heaven it could be 
made to api^ear that Masterson is not the crazy fanatic every one says 
be is. But even if everybody is right, I shall have done no harm % 
giving my old friend a chance of proving that everybody was wrong.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

KOORALI AND HER REEDS. 

Morse then turned in the direction of Koorali’s house. He was going 
to make his first call on her. Even if he had been likely to forget his 
enf^a<^ement it could not have gone out of his mind, for that morning, 
aslie was leaving the house. Lady Betty herself asked him to call at 
Mrs. Kenway’s, and ask her to come to dinner in a friendly way, and 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


64 

tlien go with Lady Betty to ono of Mr, Whistler’s ten o’clock lectures. 
But Morse would not have forgotten in any case. He was much 
interested inKoorali; more perhaps than he really knew ; more at least 
than he actually thought of. To certain men a woman is sometimes 
like a strain of music, accompanying without consciousness on their 
part all the movements of their minds. One sits at his desk and is 
writing, and all the time some sweet soft notes of distant music breathe 
into his ear and his soul, and poeticize his commonplace prosaic work 
in a way of which he is hardly conscious or not conscious at all. So 
it was with Morse just now. The Koortili music-note was with him 
while he was arguing with Lord Forre.-<t and when listening to Master- 
son. It was with him as he walked through the hurrying noisy 
streets, and thought of the approaching political struggle and the part 
he might have to play. Morse was in many ways a lonely sort of 
man. Perhaps ,he was too busy to have time to be anything but 
lonely ; for he was capable of close companionship and warm afiection. 
'J'he truth was he did not stop to think much about companionships ; 
and he felt that he had from his wife all the affection that a man of 
the world is entitled to, or could want, or could know what to do with. 
To-day somehow he felt younger and not quite lonely. 

Koor^li was alone. He was shown into the drawing-room. The 
windows, back and front, stood ojien, and, though it was London, 
there was a gentle sighing breeze, and summer’s breath still filled the 
place. The light was soft, however, shaded by outside blinds. He 
could not associate her with broad hard noonday. She was too tender, 
too sweetly serious, too j oetic. This fancy glanced through his mind 
as his eye fell upon her standing by a basket of reeds and bulrushes— 
rough, country, sedgy things—and a mass of ox-eyed daisies. She 
wore a white dress that clung about her as her draperies had a 
way of clinging; and the sleeves fell back from her little white arms 
raised to adjust the bulrushes in a vase almost as tall as herself. She 
looked very small, because of her slenderness, and her face might have 
been that of a thoughtful child. Imagination draws rapid sketches 
and delights in contrasts. A vivid mental picture seemed to alternate 
with the actual one—curiously unlike, and yet like. Perhaps it was 
the flowers that suggested that great mass of exotics before which 
Lady Betty had stood the night before, and Lady Betty herself, also 
slender and small of head, in her red brocade, with her pretty frivolity 
mkI girlish laugh, sweetest flower in the hot-house of society. 

Koorali left her reeds and daisies as he entered. She gave him her 
hand. The conventional phrases followed. It was kind of him to 
come—so soon. She was glad to be at home. Her husband was in 
the house somewhere. And she made a movement towards the bell. 

But he interposed with little ceremony. The conventional phrases 
jarred. 

“ Don’t let Mr. Kenway be disturbed—at all events not just yet. 
And please go on arranging your flowers. I should like to watch you. 
It will do me good.” 


KOORALI AND HER REEDS. 


65 

“ Why ?” she asked seriously, and went back to her reeds. He juit 
down his hat, and came near to her, leaning over the end of the 
grand ])iano, which served her as a table. 

“ Why ? ” he repeated, with his grave sweet smile, and a gesture 
that seemed to indicate freedom to take breath. “ Because it's 
Australian, and fresh and natural. Because I’m a little tired, I think, 
of the glare and noise of life in Londeii; the political situation—I have 
been facing it this morning; and the baying of the war-whelps and 
clashing of cymbals in drawing-rooms. It’s a relief and a pleasure te 
see that there are such things as bulrushes and daisies—they ought 
to be wattle-bloom and scrub-jasmine for you. You see, Mrs. Kenway, 
that I really haven’t come to pay a duty call, and to talk ‘ ihe tine 
weather,’ as last night you seemed half afraid I meant to do.” 

His words chimed with her fancy about him on the previous even¬ 
ing. This was one of the moments when he stood back Irom the 
footlights. A thrill of pleasure shot through her that in her presence 
he should be different from the statesman Morse, whom the world 
knew; the strong-willed, daring, patient, iconoclastic leader of a new 
democracy. 

“ I knew you would not talk ‘ the fine weather,’ ” she said, 

“ We didn’t do so even the first—the only time in Australia that 
we met; and I suppose it is just that which makes me want to get off 
the conventional track now,” he said. “ I came really to talk about 
you yourself, Mrs. Kenway, and about South Britain. You haven’t 
made it a republic yet! ” 

“ Nor have you made Great Britain a republic, Mr. Morse.” 

“ The one may come to mean the other,” he returned. 

There was some talk about a measure for enabling the Australian 
colonies to form a federation with England. 

“I don’t like it,” Morse said abruptly. “I think I ought to oppose 
that bill. Of course it's only permissive, and the colonies may fairly 
be allow’cd to do as they like. But 1 don’t see why they should go into 
a federation with the old country.” 

“ Nor I,” Koorali said hastily, and then stopped, as if she ought not 
to have expressed an opinion. 

“ I Avould rather have small States if one could,” Morse went on. 
“ I think human character comes out better. But we can’t help the 
agglomeration of States I suppose ; it’s the fashion now. Only I don’t 
see what your Australian colonies are likely to get from a federation 
but some of the iaults of the old State. Look at that war the other 
day that we were engaged in. Nine out of every ten Englishmen 
here at home said in private that it was a blunder and a crime ; said 
it and believed it. Your Australian colonists send us men to carry 
on the w\ar; free colonists lending their helping hand to murder poor 
Arabs for defendins: their country against an inexcusable invasion. 
That’s w'hat you will get by federation.” 

“1 am so glad to hear you say so,” Koorali exclaimed, wdth kind¬ 
ling eyes. “ 1 was bitterly grieved to hear that any of our colonists 


66 


«r//^ RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


could lend a hand in such a cruel and shameful war, hut every one 
was against me.” She was thinking especially of her husband’s wild 
exultation over the warlike ardour of the colonists. “And of course I 
didn’t know much about it; and I was almost afraid to open my 
mouth.” 

“ Your instincts led you the right way,” Morse said. “ I should 
have known how you felt if you hadn’t told me.” 

Koorali could nut help remembering her husband’s utter amazement 
when he found that she did not share his opinions and his enthusiasm. 

“ I should like to hear what you say in the House of Commons,” 
she said timidly, “ about the bill.” 

“ If I should speak,” Morse answered, “ I will let you know in good 
time; and I will get you a place in the ladies’ gallery. But it may 
not come on at all this session perhaps.” 

Then they let that subject drop. 

“ Tell me,” he said. “ You were going to your kingdom when I 
met you that time. Was it a happy reign? Don’t you remember, 
you wished to be a ‘heart-queen?’ Well—were you? Was the 
crown one of roses ? ” 

The phrase she had used and which had struck his fancy occurred 
to him at the moment. He had a half-wish to convey a delicate 
compliment by its repetition. But the compliment passed unnoticed. 
Koorali answered with gentle gravity. 

“ The reign did not last long.” 

“ How was that? ” he asked. “ Your father remained in office.” 

“ Yes, for some time. But he married.” 

“And his wife took your place! Your stepmother. Ah!—yes, 
T see.” 

There was involuntarily a tragic note in Morse’s exclamation. He 
seemed to understand it all now. His heart was filled with pity fOr 
the young ignorant creature, deposed by an unwelcome stepmother, 
slighted perhaps, and to whom a husband had represented liberty and 
a refuge. He longed to ask her some questions about her marriage, 
but restrained the impulse. 

“ I have a very tender memory of South Britain,” he said. “ At 
this moment it seems but yesterday that I w'atched the little steamer 
puffing up the river while I went out to sea.” 

“ And yet,” she said, “everything has happened since then.” 

“ Everything ? To you ? ” 

She coloured a little. 

“ I have married. I have got to know the world. My children 
have come to me.” 

“ You have children? ” he asked. He looked at her with a sort of 
wistful interest—the interest that a man may sometimes feel in a 
young mother when the passing thought strikes him that his own 
wife has never had a child. 

“ I have two,” answered Koorali. “ And indeed, Mr. Morse,” she 
added brightly, “it makes one feel that girlhood is a long way off 


KOORALI AND HER REEDS. 67 

when, as was my case this morninpr, one has to think of sendins a hov 
to school.” ° 

He smiled rather sadly. “ I can’t imagine you fitting out a hoy for 
school. I can only think of you as Koorali, ‘ the Little Queen.’ ” 

Again that shade of melancholy came over her lace. She did not 
answer. 

“ Do you remember,” he said, “ my prophecy that before six years 
had passed we should meet in London ? ” 

“ Yes,” she replied. “ But it is more than six years.” 

“ And do you remember,” he asked again, “ how you told me of a 
fuller life—a world filled with lovely bodiless things, which seemed so 
near to you when you wandered alone in the bush ? ” 

“ Oh! ” she uttered a childlike cry, and paused for a moment, looking 
at him with eyes lighted up and parted lips. “ You haven’t forgotten 
the foolish things 1 said to you on that day—so many years ago V” 

“ I have forgotten nothing about that day,” he answered. “ It 
remains vividly in my memory; it’s like some incomplete poem, or 
like some picture one gets a glimpse of once and once only, as he 
hurries through some foreign gallery, and which gets in a moment 
engraved lastingly on the mind. I am always in a hurry, and I have 
had that sort of experience.” 

“Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “There are pictures like that, I 
suppose; and I know there are scenes that stay with one always.” 

“ I told you,” he continued, “ that when we met in some London 
drawing-room, I would ask you if you had kept the fancies and the 
dreams you spoke of then. I thought of that last night; but I did 
not ask you.” 

Koorali let her hands fall, and with them a cluster of daisies that 
she had been putting together. Her lip trembled. She bent straight 
upon him eyes full of pathos and questioning and then turned them 
slowly away again without replying. 

They were both silent for a minute or two. She gathered up her 
daisies once more. The breeze had risen slightly, and came in through 
the open windows, rustling the bulrushes. It was not like London 
somehow. 

“ Do you hear the wind ? ” he asked abruptly, yet in a dreamy tone. 
“ It seems to come from a long, long way off.” 

She smiled answeringly. Their eyes met—his had never left her 
face. They exchanged silent sympathy and trust. The looks seemed 
both to say, “ You and I gaze backward across an ocean.” She turn d 
again to her reeds and flowers, and put the finishing touch to Irer 
work. The vase was filled now. 

“ Where do you get your rushes ? ” he said, in the same abrupt way, 
as though he were talking to cover some slight pain or confusion. It 
was he who was embarrassed and unlike himself. That silenf passing- 
by of his remark struck him as pathetically significant, and, he thought, 
characteristic of her. It was in keeping with a simple directness she 
liad—to him at least—in which he found her greatest charm. 


68 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE. 


“ They came from a tiny place which my husband has taken in 
Lyndshire. A river Hows by the house.” 

“Perhaps it is mir river,” said Morse. “We, too, have a place in 
Lyndshire, and a river also. We shall probably go there this autumn. 
It used to be my wife’s old home, and her father gave it up to her 
when we married. She is fond of Bromswold. How strange, ^Irs. 
Kenway, if we should both belong to the same county! I wonder if 
you wiil like the country in England?” 

“ I don’t know much about that county, or about any English 
country,” said Kooriili. “ I have only been once to the Grey Manor 
for a few days. Crichton took it because of the hunting, 1 believe, 
and because it is near where his people used to live.” 

They talked some generalities, and Morse delivered Lady Betty’s 
invitation, and explained somewhat the nature of Mr. Whistler’s “ten 
o’clock.” 

The sudden sharp creaking of a pair of boots disturbed the conversa¬ 
tion. Crichton Ken way came in. Ken way was always a well-dressed 
and a graceful man, but somehow or other his boots invariably creaked. 
As he was coming in, Koorali stood right in his line of vision, and he 
did not see that Morse was in the room. He spoke sharply to his wife. 

“Of course, KooiAli, I needn’t ask; you never thought of sending 
about that coachman? I knew you would forget it.” 

“ Oh no,” Koorali answered quietly. “ 1 have sent.” 

Then Kenway saw Morse coming forward, and he became suddenly 
embarrassed. Morse must have heard his words to his wile and 
noticed his manner. He welcomed Morse cordially enough, however, 
and they talked “ the fine weather.” Koorali fell into the background 
a little for a moment or two. Ken way had seen her cheek redden 
slightly as he spoke to her on his coming in, and he knew that she 
felt humiliated. He thought he saw Morse’s eye resting with an ex¬ 
pression of commiseration on her. Kenway was a thorough man of 
the world, in the smoking-room sense of the words. He was a firm 
believer in the “fire and tow” principle as regards man and woman. 
Here is the fire, there is the inflammable matter; bring these two 
together and shall there not be a blaze ? The inflammable matter in 
this instance he identified with the man. If the woman was the fire 
it was a cold fire—a fire like that of Vesta. He had not the slightest 
fear about KoorMi. But an idea came into his mind about Morse, and 
it filled him with complacency. 

“Your people are coming in after the elections, every one tells me,” 
he said. 

“It is hard to say,” Morse answered rather coldly; “things are 
uncertain and mixed. So far as I can conjecture—it isn’t much "better 
than conjecture—1 should say we are likely to be strong.” 

“Theityou are sure to be Prime Minister.” 

Kenway rather affected a kind of not ungraceful bluntness, a coming- 
to-the-point manner. It gave an appearance of irankness and sincerity. 
There was a joyous and congratulatory sound in his voice as he said 


KOORALI AND HER REEDS, 


69 

these words, the tone of one who is so sincerely delighted at the 
prospect of a friend’s success that he cares not even though the friend 
should know it. He was thinking at the same time what a splendid 
thing it might be fur him if Koorali could get some influence over the 
coming Prime Minister. 

“If I come up to the fence I must take the jump, I suppose,” Morse 
said. “ But it is not quite certain that I shall ride. If I am to be 
Prime Minister there must be no war.” 

Ken way did not quite follow the train of thought, and in any case 
would have attached little importance to what seemed to him Morse’s 
conventional disclaimer of ambitious purpose. 

“ Oh, if your people —our people, I mean—come in, there is no one 
hut you who could carry on a Government. Mvery one is clear about 
that. At all events, ninety-nine men out of a hundred say you are 
the coming Prime Minister.” 

Morse smiled, and glanced at KoorMi. 

“The hundredth man sometimes knows better,” he said. “I 
wonder what the hundredth man says in this case?” 

Koorali admired and was impressed by his quiet tranqud way; the 
composure with which he showed himself equal to Other fortune. She 
was accustomed to fussy ways, even about the mere.->t trifles, and 
Morse’s manner was new and charming to her. 

“Shan’t you be proud to know the Prime Minister of England, 
Koorali?” Ken way asked, suddenly turning to her. 

“ I am proud to know Mr. Morse,” she said with an enthusiasm 
which she did not take any pains to repress. Morse looked at her 
gratefully. He understood her meaning thoroughly. 

After a while Morse took his leave. Ken way watched with close 
attention the parting of Morse and Koorali. Their eyes did not meet; 
there was no glance or half-glance significantly interchanged. “Not 
yet,” Kenway said to himself. 

“ I like him ever so much,” Kenway exclaimed to Koorali, as they 
found themselves alone. “ Don’t you like him, Koorali? ” 

“Very much. He impresses me. I think he is so sincere and 
strong.” 

“ Quite so. I say, KoorMi, I hope he will come here very often, 
don’t you ? He is a man to know.” 

“ Do 5 ’’ou think he is a man easy for every one to know ? ” Koorali 
asked quietly. 

“ Oh, yes; I don’t mean that. He is a man one ought to know. 
Pie will have tremendous influence before long. They say he will be 
Prime Minister. He seemed to like you, I thought. But for that 
matter every one dt^s now.” 

Kenway thought more of his wife when people liked her. 


70 


« 77 /£ RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


CHAPTER IX. 

“what do you call LONDON SOCIETY?” 

The Sunday dinner-party at Lady Betty’s was, as Morse had told 
Masterson, small. As at first planned it was to be hardly a dinner¬ 
party at all, in the ordinary sense of the word; only a Sunday dinner¬ 
party—one of those little gatherings now growing common in London 
society in which the smallness of the number is supposed, in some sort 
of way, to mitigate the conventional objection to festivities on the 
“ day of rest.” 

Lady Betty came of a somewhat strict family on both sides ; but she 
liked a good deal of freedom for herself, while yet she was unwilling 
to shock the regulated ideas of the set from amongst which she came. 
So she had very soon fallen into the way of having small, quiet, unpre¬ 
tentious, deprecatory little dinners on the Sunday. This particular 
day she intended to have, besides Mr. Paulton, only Lady Deveril, who 
had written novels about society and fashion, and affected the air of a 
literary hack, talked of “ copy,” and inveighed against publishers; 
Mr. Piercy, a scientific man, considered even by his own scientific set 
as somewhat too bigoted in his atheism; and the Rev. Father St. 
Maurice, a young man of good family, who had been a clergyman of 
the Church of England and a popular preacher, had then become a 
free-thinker and started a service and a Sunday hall of his own, and 
finally had gone over to the Catholic Church. He was a favourite in 
society through all his changes; every one believed in his sincerity. 
Morse had, however, added on Masterson since then; and Lady Betty 
had bethought her of the Kenways, and of Arden, whom she thought 
KoorMi would like to meet. 

Lady Betty was especially friendly and warm to Masterson. She 
went towards him holding out both her hands when he entered, and she 
reproached him with gentle earnestness for not coming to see her more 
often. 

The Kenways were a little late. The company, with the exception 
of Lord Arden, was all gathered in the drawing-room before Crichton 
and Koorali made their appeaiance. This was just as well; for Lady 
Betty was enabled to sound the praises of Koorali in advance to every 
one of her other guests. 

When Mr. and Mrs. Crichton Kenway were announced—Kenway 
would never give his name without the “Crichton”—Lady Betty 
tripped up to Koorali and kissed her. The curious likeness and unlike¬ 
ness at once apparent between the two women was again noticed by 
• the husband of each one. l^ady Betty’s simple white dress had been 
put on with the slightly malicious design that it should serve as a 
counterfoil to the elaborate artistic costumes, presumably to be seen at 
Mr. Whistlers rccci)tion. Koorali also was in white; and there was 
a little more colour than usual in her cheeks, which made her eyes look 


^^WHAT DO YOU CALL LONDON SOCIETY?” 71 

darker and larger. She was slightly confused for a moment by Lady 
Betty’s kiss, and deeply touched by this mark of cordiality—for 
Koorali's heart was one of those which unfolds to kindness as a flower 
expands in sunshine. She returned it with a look of shy gratitude not 
devoid of dignity that was very pretty, and that prejwssessed every one 
present in her favour. Crichton’s profound bow was a triumph of 
dramatic art. It suggested somehow the thought of a man originally 
familiar to courts, but for some time an exile from their grace and 
splendour, and who in the satisfaction of his return to his rightful 
sphere marks his restoration by an especial floridness of courtesy. All 
the time, however, he contrived to send searching glances round the 
room, anxious to know at once who w-as there, and whom it would-be 
well for him to fasten on and whom to avoid. He was a little dis- 
apix)inted; there was no one particularly interesting in his sense, he 
thought, except Lady Betty herself, who was of course a great person¬ 
age everywhere. 

They did not wait for Arden, who had the privileges of kinship here, 
and was not treated with formality. 

Morse took down Lady Deveril; Mr. Paulton had charge of the 
hostess; Lady Betty introduced Mr. St. Maurice to Koorali; he would 
suit her better she thought than any of the other men. The dinner 
table was round; the guests were not too mnny for general conversa¬ 
tion. Lady Betty detested what she called table d'hote dinners, where 
every one talked only to his next neighbour. Crichton Kenway’s eyes 
sparkled with gratification as he surveyed the appointments of the 
table. He enjoyed nothing in the world so thoroughly as a good dinner 
well served. 

Lady Deveril was a round-faced woman, with twinkling grey eyes, 
still young, with a mass of short-cropped hair standing out everywhere 
round her head. Father St. Maurice was tall, courtly, handsome, with 
meek grave manners which sometimes concealed a shaft of satire, as 
the ivy of Harmodious concealed the blade of his sword. Mr. Piercy 
was robust, with a bold square forehead. These two had been well- 
acquainted before St. IMaurice became a free-thinker, and while Piercy 
still made it a practice to go to church on Sunday. They were near 
each other at table. 

“ Well, and how do you like your new superstition, Maurice ? ” was 
' Piercy’s genial greeting. 

“ Much better than our old hypocrisy,” was St. Maurice’s bland reply. 

Koorali could not help smiling; her smile pleased St. Maurice. 

At that moment Arden entered, and after making his apologies to 
Lady Betty, slipped into the vacant place, which was next Lady 
Deveril and opposite KoorMi. 

“ I don’t want much dinner. Lady Betty,” he said. “ I have been 
dining already, I am ashamed to say. You should have been with us, 
St. ivfaurice. I couldn’t ask you, for w’e are so poor that we are not 
allowed to have any guests; but w^e do a lot of good, or at least, we try 
to. It’s for the widows of seamen, don’t you know ? ” 


72 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


There set in a talk about the condition of things in England. Mr. 
Paulton was very anxious to get an accurate view of everything, and 
thought he could not have come to a better place for the purpose. He 
asked various questions about politics and social life. Somehow he 
found that the greater number of days he lived in England, the less 
knowledge of any accurate kind he seemed to possess. Up* to this 
time he had found himself mainly engaged in the process of getting 
rid of convictions which he had brought with him in advance con¬ 
cerning everything in England; and he did not seem to be taking in 
many new and true ideas in the pdace of those he had to throw over¬ 
board. 

“What I want,” Mr. Paulton said, “is to get information. I am 
here in what would be called, I presume, a representative company, in 
the very heart of your London society—in your West End ; and I 
have the rare good fortune to find a company which, though small, 
appears to me to include representatives of very difierent shades of 
public opinion. Now, I want to know something about English life 
of this present day. Can you tell me ? ” 

“What do you want to be told about, Mr. Paulton?” Lady Betty 
asked. “Do you want to hear about the social revolution? Mr. 
Masterson can tell you all that. Do you want to hear West End 
scandal ? If so, I fancy I can instmet you as well as another. 
Radicalism? Why, you are quite near my husband. Literature? 
Lady Deveril has written three novels—is it three, Susie ?—yes, three 
novels—and they have all been favourably reviewed in the papers.” 

Lady Deveril gave a little shudder, which seemed to tell of an over¬ 
taxed brain. “ Pray don’t speak of my work. It’s a relief to escape 
from it. 1 have been correcting proofs all the morning.” 

“Is that worse than collecting ‘copy’?” asked Lord Arden, 
innocently. 

Koorali glanced at the authoress with amused interest. 

“Mrs. Kenway is wondering whether }ou mean to turn her into 
‘copy,’” continued Arden. 

“Oh,” said Lady Deveril, with serene patronage, “Mrs. Kenway 
doesn’t understand our literary jargon yet.” 

“ Proofs should be read by an illiterate person, to whom the laws of 
punctuation are a novelty,” sententiously observed Mr. Piercy. 

“ Correcting proofs is the most maddening occupation in all the 
world,” said Lady Betty, feelingly. 

“ By the way. Lady Betty,” asked Father St. Maurice, “ how is your 
article on Venetian ironwork getting on? Have you hunted up any 
more authorities?” 

“ I hate Venice! I hate iron ! ” exclaimed Lady Betty. “ I believe 
in occupation for women, Mr. Kenway,” she added, turning her beaming 
smile on Crichton ; “ and I tried to set a good example by writing 
things, don’t you know ? I exhausted ferns and Flemish iace; and 
now I’m done to death , by iron. I’ll never write anything again. I 
can’t round my periods.” 


^'IVHAT DO YOU CALL LONDON SOCIETY 73 

“ Oh, but we don’t try to round our periods nowadays, do we, Lady 
Deveril? ” said Arden. 

There was a laugh. 

“ Well, Mr. Paulton,” said Lady Betty, “ anyhow, you see literature 
is pretty well represented. Lord Arden is an authority on the Salvation 
Army and the White Pdbbon movement.” 

Lord Arden put in a gentle protest. 

Lady Betty went on. “ As for the condition of England in regard 
to religion ; well, here is Mr. St. Maurice. He ought to know all about 
that, his experience has been varied.” 

“ Is England improving or decaying ? ” Mr. Paulton asked. 

“ Improving,” Mr. St. Maurice said, with a look of ineffable convic¬ 
tion. “ Improving, surely. On the verge, I should say, of a complete 
renovation.” 

“ Sinking, decaying, tumbling into utter ruin and perdition,” Master- 
son exclaimed. “But it must fall into utter ruin before it can bo 
regenerated. Everything has got to come down before anything can 
be put up again. We have to pass through a terrible ordeal; then 
will come out purified, disenthralled, and regenerated, the true England 
—the England of the fntui c.” 

“ What England wants,” Piercy declared, “ is true scientific way of 
thinking. We want to get rid of superstitions; we want to shake olf 
the grasp of the dead hand in our literature and our social life as well 
as in our charitable organizations. Let us have facts and face them. 
Above all things, gentlemen, no dreams, as the Emperor Alexander of 
Ptussia said to the Polish deputation.” 

“ What England wants,” Lady Deveril gently sighed, “ is the 
capacity to dream.” 

“ wLat England wants,” Father St. Maurice murmured, “ is the all- 
pervading, all-quickening sense of religion.” 

“ What England wants,” said Morse, “ is the sympathy of class with 
class.” 

“Yes,” Koorali spoke out with courage, “little as I have seen of 
England, I have seen thatC 

“ What England wants,” Masterson declared, “ is a social revolution. 
She must clear out her aristocracy and her capitalists before she can 
even breathe.” 

“ Oh, but surely,” Kenway said,looking to Lady Betty, “you would 
not have an England without gentlemen ? ” 

“Seems to me,” Mr. Paulton observed, “that England wants pretty 
well everything ; or that she wants nothing at all. J3ut I guess there’s 
something in what Mr. Morse says about the want of sympathy 
between class and class. And I think there’s something in Avhat this 
gentleman says, too,” and he turned ta Mr. St. Maurice. “You do 
seem to me to want a new and fresh breath of religious thought. 
Your atmosphere is a little stagnant in that way, so far as I can 
see.” 

“ We hn]ie to quicken it,” Mr. St. Maurice said with the smile of 
{> 


74 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


quiet radiance which becomes and bespeaks the convinced enthusiast. 
“ Our time is near at hand, Mr. Paulton.” 

“And that time, sir, is-?” 

“ The time of the Church,” St. Maurice said in a low and measured 
tone. 

“ May I ask, sir, what Church ? ” 

“ There is only one Church,” St. Maurice replied. 

“ Rot! ” Mr. Riercy grumbled below his breath. Then he said aloud, 
“ I hope we are near the end of superstition in England. This un¬ 
fortunate country has been groaning for centuries enough under the 
nightmare of superstition; it is time that the dawn came and allowed 
her to wake and get up and do something.” 

“Does science to-day call faith superstition?” Koorali asked 
pluck ily. 

Morse thought it prudent to intervene here, and save her from the 
man of science. “ I have often,” he said, “ wondered whether it is 
really possible for people to get to know the true and special character¬ 
istics of the age and the society in which they live. What is the leading 
characteristic of London society at the present hour ? ” 

“ What do you call London society ? ” Masterson asked. 

“ Exactly,” Mr. Piercy struck in. “ What do you call it ? Is its 
centre in Marlborough House; or the Houses of Parliament; or the 
British Museum ; or the Hall of Science at the East End ? ” 

“ Or the South Kensington Museum; or the Grosvenor Gallery?” 
Lady Deveril suggested. 

“Or the Eleusis Club?” Lady Betty said with a smile. 

“I give no opinion,” Masterson said. “1 have nothing to do with 
London society. If you want to know anything about the real life 
and manhood and womanhood of England, I might put you on the 
right track. I know what are the classes who Avill shape the destiny 
of a better England than ours—a true England. But what you call 
society is not worth five minutes’ serious study to any man who has 
anything real to do in life.” 

“ I don’t think I seem to advance much in my mastery of the English 
social problem,” Mr. Paulton observed, with a quiet smile. “You 
don’t seem to be able to agree among yourselves even as to what 
London society is.” 

“ What do yoH call London society, dear Lady Betty?” 

It was Lady Deveril who asked the question. She asked it really in 
the spirit of one who desires information. How, to Mr. Paulton, for 
example, or any other stranger, it would probably seem as if a Lady 
Deveril ought to be as much of an authority upon the constituent 
elements of London society as a Lady Betty Morse. But it was not 
so. Lady Deveril was the daughter of an English country gentleman. 
She had married a banker, who sat for years in the House of Commons, 
subscribed liberally to his ])arty, found many eligible candidates and 
much election expenses for them, and wais made a peer for his patriotic 
labours and sacrifices. In Lady Betty Morse’s family, on the side of 


IVHAT DO YOU CALL LONDON SOCIETY 75 


her mother as well as of her fotlicr, peerages began to set in rather 
before the days of Hengist and Horsa. 

Kenway looked towards his hostess with deferential interest. Arden 
glanced at Koorali. There was an odd smile on his face. 

“Oh, well,” Lady Hetty said, with a certain pretty mixture of 
dididence and conviction, “ 1 suppose society means the people that 
one meets and knows, don’t you think ? ” 

Kvtn Mr. I’iercy was amused at the blended simplicity and scientific 
accuracy of this definition. Lady Betty was perfectly correct. Society, 
in the conventional sense of the word, meant just what she had said— 
the people Lady Betty was in the habit of meeting, and knowing as 
well as meeting. Poor Masterson audibly groaned. Morse felt it too, 
although in a different way. 

“ I sometimes think,” Morse said, “ that we want a great national 
misfortune in this country to shake us out of our sleek contented 
indolence, and to shake us into a common feeling of concern for each 
other; to make us English men and women, and not people of different 
classes and sets. We have been too prosperous—I mean all of us 
who are tolci.ibly well olf; and we can’t be got to believe that the 
vast majority of the English people are poor and ignorant and un¬ 
happy.” 

“dh, Mr. IMorse, you are right,” Koorali said, clasping her hands. 
“ Better any common calamity than such stagnation of the country’s 
heart 1 ” 

“ You want something like our great civil war,” Mr. Paulton said. 
“ That did us in the North a wonderful amount of good, for the time 
anyhow. It made us fellow-countrymen and patriots.” 

“ But we are going to have a war now, are we not?” Lady Deveril 
asked. “ Every one says we are going to war.” 

“The Jingoes are trying to have it their own way,” Masterson 
exclaimed. “ But they will have to reckon with the people of England 
first—let them make up their minds to tlmtS 

“ I only hope so,” Morse said. “ I hope the English people will 
insist on being heard before it is too late.” 

“ I am glad to hear you talk like that, Morse,” Masterson said, with 
lighting eyes. 

“ I ani glad to hear you talk like that, Masterson,” was the quiet 
reply of Morse. 

“ I am glad to hear you both,” Koorali said. Her husband looked 
rebukingly at her. 

“ Is it true that your Court is for this war ? ” Paulton asked. 

“ I fear it is true,” Morse said. 

“ Of course it is true ! ” Masterson exclaimed. “ When was there 
any devilry of the kind going on that our Court circles were not in 
favour of ft ? ” 

“Oh, come now, IMr. IMastcrson,” Lady Betty said earnestly, “I do 
think that so very unfair of you. Our Court has never been much in 
favour of war, you do know that; and never in favour of an unjust 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


76 

war, never! I know that myself; but of course they are too patriotic 
to like to see the country trampled on.” 

“You have heard what your husband thinks of such a war,” 
Masterson said grimly. 

“ My husband! oh yes, that’s another thing, we don’t mind him. 
Of course he goes in for being a republican and all that. I like him to 
have his way, it becomes him. It looks nice, and picturesque in him, 
and I won’t hear a word said against him; but still, you know, the 
Court must have some opinion of its own.” 

“You must ask people to-night at the Universe Club,” Morse said. 

“Why there?” Paulton asked. 

“The Universe is our political palace of truth. We keep our con¬ 
ventional statements—I shouldn’t like to call them our lies—for Par¬ 
liament ; but when we meet in the Universe we say exactly what wo 
think. We have one conscience and one code of truth for Parliament, 
and another—the scriptural code—lor the Universe Club.” 

Arden laughed a little sadly. 

“But I thought you Englishmen always prided yourselves on your 
blunt truthfulness ?” said Paulton. 

“ Not in Parliament,” replied Morse. “ No ; it wouldn’t do there. 
There we go with our party. You make a speech and do your best 
with it in support of some particular act of policy; you walk home 
with one of your colleagues that night, and you and he agree in 
denouncing it.” 

Kenway turned to his host. There was something a little puzzled 
in his expression. He had not talked much, he had been observing; 
and with considerable suppleness his mind was trying to adjust itself 
to the characteristics of the people he was with. He did not feel quite 
sure how to take Morse. A bit of conventional satire rose to his lips, 
as the correct remark to make, but Lady Betty’s voice checked it. 

“Sandham, my dear!” she remonstrated. “Mr. Paulton, I hope 
you won’t take my husband’s fanciful exaggeration as a stern reality. 
I don’t think he would say—well, the thing that is not, to save the 
empire—or the life of his wife.” 

“It is true, all the same,” Morse maintained. “There is one con¬ 
science for a man’s private life, and another for the House of Commons. 
It used to shock me a good deal at first, but now I am getting used 
to it.” 

“ I hope and believe all men are truthful—all gentlemen, I mean,” 
Lady Ueveril said plaintively. “ Women are not, I know; but then 
that’s different—no one expects them to be.” 

“Well, we are wandering away from the condition of society in 
London,” Paulton said. “ What now. Lady Betty, would you say was 
the main characteristic of the London society of to-day ? ” 

“ Dullness I should say—decidedly, dullness; but I don’t know that 
it is worse than it ever was.” 

“ I am sure you do your best to brighten it,” Lady Deveril inter¬ 
posed. “ I don’t know how any society could be dull where you were.’ 


'^WI/AT DO YOU CALL LONDON SOCIETYN’ 77 


“ And ^vhat should you say, Lady Devc.ril? ” the American Minister 
asked. He was evidently anxious for information, and did not wish 
the conversation to stray, 

“ I have been writing a novel,” said Lady Deveril demurely, “ in 
which I endeavour to show that the leading characteristic of the social 
life of our day is the altered position and functions of woman.” 

“ Didn’t know they had altered,” growled the man of science. 

“ Ah, now,” said Arden, “ we come to my subject. I shall have a 
great deal to say about that some day. 

“ Say it now,” said Lady Betty. 

“ Don’t you think,” he returned, “ that our talk has been a little too 
philosophical already—not to say dry ? ” 

Mr. Paulton objected. 

Kenway, who would have preferred a little social froth, put in, 
“ Have you heard Dr. Maria Lakeswell Tubbs, the American lady 
doctor. Lady Betty ? She is giving discourses to her own sex on the 
functions of women. I am told that she carries about a skeleton, and 
dangles it before her audience, while she exposes all their secrets.” 

“ But I must know Dr. Maria Lakeswell Tubbs,” exclaimed Lady Betty. 

“Give a party. Lady Betty,” suggested Arden. “Ask Dr. Maria 
Lakeswell Tubbs to bring her skeleton. She’ll make a sensation.” 

“ She is at home on Mondays. Come with me next Monday,” said 
Lady Deveril. 

“I have a mothers’ meeting,” sighed Lady Betty. 

“ Take your mothers,” growled Mr. Biercy. “ It’s most important 
they should be made acquainted with their internal economy—quite 
worth a dozen two-guinea fees.” 

“A t\vo-guinea fee! That’s altogether a different matter,” cried 
Lady Deveril. “ I’ll back out. In these days of agricultural depres¬ 
sion, and when the Primrose League is so expensive, and publishers 
cut down prices, one hasn’t two guineas to spare. 

“ The principal characteristic of society to-day—I assume that by 
characteristic you mean -weakness or fault?”—it was Pather Bt. 
Maurice spoke this, “is too much self-analysis, inducing and nourish- 
^ing scepticism.” 

“The great defect of society,” Piercy declared, “is the lack of 
courage to carry analysis of self and all else deep enough.” 

“ The characteristic of society in England to-day,” Morse said, “ is 
self-consciousness.” 

“ The characteristic of modern English society,” Masterson affirmed, 
“is luxury, effeminacy, debauchery. Society is corruption; aristocracy 
is effeteness ; religious profession is cant.” 

“ I give it up,” the American Minister said. “ I shall not get to 
know what is the characteristic of London society ; my mind is made 
up. I will not write a book on England.” 

“ Wait until 5 ’'ou have been at the Universe,” Morse suggested. 

“ Come to one of our democratic meetings any Sunday in Hyde 
Park or Battersea Park,” Hilasterson advised. 


78 ^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 

“I wish you would attend one of our services,” Father St. Maurice 
gently urged. 

“ Have you nothing to advise, Mr. Piercy ? ” the Minister asked. 

“ I ? Oh dear, no ; nothing. I have to do with science ; I don’t 
advise anything about society.” 

“ There, you see! ” Lady Betty exclaimed in a sprightly tone; 
“ there is only one man of real scientific knowledge in this little com¬ 
pany, and he refuses to give us any help from his enlightenment. I 
think it is of no use our trying to seek out the truth any further.” 

She was glad to find an excuse for not prolonging the conversation. 
She made her mystic sign to Lady Deveril, and the three ladies left 
the room. The others followed almost immediately. It was not a 
house whore the men lingered over their wine. This was somewhat to 
Kenway’s regret, for the claret was ’7-4 Mouton. Morse went straight 
to Koorali, and Kenway watched them while they were talking. He 
had seldom of late seen his wife so bright and animated. She seemed 
altogether more human. Mr. Piercy and Lord Arden had joined the 
two. Once or twice, to Crichton’s surprise, he heard Koorali give a 
ready reply to some remark of the man of science, who had also a vein 
of humour. Kenway kept his eyes and ears well open, though he was 
assiduous in making himself agreeable to Lady Betty. The little party 
broke up very soon. Morse was taking Mr. Paulton and Crichton to 
the Universe Club. Masterson, who was a member of the club, was to 
go with them. Piercy was returning home to study for a paper on the 
dissection of the water-cress leaf; and Lady Betty was taking Lady 
Deveril and Koorali to the house of a fashionable woman to hear one 
of Mr. Whistler’s “ ten o’clock ” lectures. 


CHAPTER X. 

“and so— hallo!” 

The rooms ot the Universe Club, in one of the streets close to Berkeley 
Square, were specially well filled this Sunday night. One of the 
members of the club was going.to take his position as head of the 
embassy at the capital of the foreign State with which, according to all 
appearance, England was about to go to war. The former ambassador 
from the Court of Queen Victoria had expressed a wish to change to 
some other place. He was in favour of a ])eace policy, it was said; and 
the new man was understood to be all for a policy of defiance. So 
there was some interest felt in his departure, and there was much 
speculation as to the speed of his coming back to London again. The 
whole thing was discussed in rather a light and chaffing tone ; and bets 
were freely offered that the new ambassador would not even be allowed 
the chance of sleeping one night in the capital to which he w'as bound. 

“ Wouldn’t unpack my things, if I were you, Wolmington,” a 
youthful member of the House of Lords said to him ; “ won’t be worih 


SO—HALLO 


79 i 

your while, bet you anything you like. Stay, I say; here's Morse; 
he’ll tell us something. If he can keep you there he will. Let’s ask 
him what he and his merry men, the Radicals, think they can do to 
prevent a fight now.’’ 

^lorse had come into the room with Crichton Kenway, and had been 
introducing Kenway to men here and there. Kenway was just now in 
an ecstacy of delight. Every name he heard named was that of some 
distinguished or prominent man; more than once he heard a really 
famous name. Every name he heard was already familiar to him. He 
had known all about the names and their owners in his far away South 
Britain, and it was a wonderful experience to him now to find himself 
in company and in converse with the living men themselves. It con¬ 
firmed him in the stulden idea which had come into his mind that 
evening, that he would scheme for an appointment in England. He 
now felt that he never could, under any conditions, endure a return to 
South Britain ; that he never could leave London ; that he never could 
exist any more without society such as that in which he had lately been 
moving. Men of all parties and sections, and men of no party at all, 
belonged to this club. Every foreigner of any distinction who came to 
I.ondon was sure to be brought to the club by some of its members. 
Kenway had been a little doubtful in coming along to the club rooms 
whether Morse was really the best man to stick on to. But in the 
club he soon made up his mind. There was a great deal of talk about 
the coming elections, and every one seemed to assume that there would 
be a Liberal majority, with a strong Radical section in it and at its 
front, and that Morse must have his chance of being Prime Minister. 
Amid all the levity, and jesting, and chaff, this earnest conviction 
made its existence felt; and Ken way resolved to hold on to Morse. 
Masterson had been in the club, too; but he did not stay long. He 
was inclined to grow fierce now and then; he could not stand the 
chaff. He knew he rather bored people with his one idea; and he 
could not put his one idea aside even for a moment. He felt this him¬ 
self, and was gradually withdrawing from all society. So he went 
away abruptly, after having spoken a few words to Morse apart. 

Corks were popping, soda was fizzing, cigars were thickening the air, 
matches were sputtering all over the place. The drinking was very 
modest; only a whiskey and soda, or something of the kind. There 
were few pictures or curiosities of any sort to look at. The Universe 
did not go in for that sort of thing. It went in for celebrities and con¬ 
versation. ' Morse had called it not inaptly a Palace of Truth. So far 
as Kenway could understand, every one there said exactly what he 
thought. He was amazed to find how many men who sat on the 
Liberal benches and voted blind with the Jjlberal chiefs were rank 
Conservatives in their hearts and in the Universe Club. He was 
surprised to find some leading members of the Carlton declaring that 
the time had gone by for the absurd old notions which might have 
suited the diiysof Lord Eldon, and that Lord Randolph was quite right 
when he went boldly in for a Tory Democrncy. It bewildered him to 


8 o 


“r//^ RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


discover that almost everybody on both sides of the political field was 
of opinion that some sort of Home Rule ought to he given to Ireland. 
It amazed him still more to hear the terms in which bishops, arch¬ 
bishops, princes eveo, were talked of, now in this part of the room and 
now in tliat. 

“ Is loyalty, then, only known in the colonies? ” he asked of Morse, 
as they were going down the stairs. 

“ Old-fashioned loyalty, personal loyalty, is, I suppose,” Morse 
replied. “ Some of us really like the institution of royalty, and believe 
in what Paulton calls ‘dressed-up dummyism’as best suited for the 
country ; others don’t object to it; others again don’t think it would 
be worth the trouble to try to make any change. But I don’t believe 
there is anybody who is really enthusiastic and lyrical about it; except, 
perhaps, in the colonies. You see, you are so far off there. The thing 
looks all brightness and poetry to you—like a star.” The comparison 
came into his mind as they passed into the quite street, and he looked 
up at the stars. 

Morse stopped at the door, and bade Kenway good night. 

“ I am not going home just yet,” he said ; “ I have to go to a place.” 

The night was tine, and Morse walked for a while. He had a light 
coat thrown over his dress coat. His tall figure and commanding 
presence made him conspicuous. Once or twice, as Kenway followed 
him at a little distance through Berkeley Square and into Dover Street 
and Piccadilly, some one recognized Morse, and looked after him and 
mentioned his name. 

As Ken way followed him? Yes; Kenway was a man who dearly 
loved to lind out things about people. He had a fixed idea that there 
was something to be found out about every man, if one only gave him¬ 
self to the task of detection. He was very curious to know where a 
man like Morse could be going at that late hour of the Sunday night. 
It might be a good thing, he thought, in any case to make some dis¬ 
covery, if there were any to be made. No one could say when such 
knowledge might not come in usefully; at all events, it would be well 
to know.* Ken way smiled; almost chuckled—a somewhat malign 
chuckle. A good many conflicting feelings were at work within him 
that evening. He had been obliged once or twice to readjust his 
meiital attitude. Several things had surprised him. It had surprised 
him that his wife should appear at ease, should even shine, in the 
society of Morse and his friends. He himself had felt a little out of it 
all. Though he swelled with exultation at the thought of having been 
taken up and introduced at the Universe by Morse, he was neverthe¬ 
less galled by a consciousness of inferiority. He was glad to see that 
Morse admired Koorali. He meant to turn the fact to his own advan¬ 
tage; yet, it irritated him too, and Koorali’s evident admiration of 
iMorse made him jealous in a vague, pettish way. It was he himself, 
her husband, who should bo Koorali’s hero—not any other man. He 
would like to show her that Morse was not so far above the peccadilloes 
of ordinary men. IMnrse, he thought, always postured as such a 


^^AND SO—HALLO 


8 i 


stately and serious sort of person. It would be good fun if he could 
find out something about Morse which would astonish Koorali. The 
chance of doing this gave a fresh impulse to Kenway’s sleuth-hound 
instincts. The suspicion in his mind was that Morse’s midnight 
mission would prove to be of a distincly non-political character. 
Kenway was highly amused already; he enjoyed the discovery in 
anticipation, lie alwa,ys gloated over hints of scandal in high places. 
What he could not understand was, why Morse should walk. Why 
did he not get into a cab? Surely he must know that there was at 
least a chance of people recognizing him. But that is just the way 
with men, Kenway said to himself philosophically; they are always 
most incautious when the condition of things especially calls for caution. 

The reason why ^Morse walked was because the night was fine and 
Morse loved walking, especially at night. He was hardly ever seen in 
a carriage; he rode or he walked. He did not ride much in the How; 
he went out to Hampstead Heath or to one of the commons on the 
south side and had a hard gallop there; and he took long walks when 
he could. He loved a walk through the streets at night; lie loved to 
study the changed aspect of the great city, and to see familiar bits of 
London made unfamiliar and poetic by moonlight or starlight, or by 
mist and darkness. To him there was a fascination in the vistas of 
lights; in the dim outlines of the buildings; in the moving crowd— 
eyes flashing into his for an instant, suggesting perhaps the tragedy 
of a life; forms hurrying by and then lost in the dimness. He was 
moved in a strange way by the contrasts in this “ under-world,” as it 
seemed—of wealth and squalor, of vice and innocence, of gloom and 
brightness, mysterious alleys, dark and sad as hell, leading from some 
gay resort, over which shone silvery electric light that might have 
been the radiance of he iven. 

He paused nov/ for a second in an almost deserted street, struck 1 y 
the efiect of a short avenue of red gas lamiis, converging to a point 
from which an indistinct shape and two brilliant staring eyes—the 
lamps of a hansom cab—flew towards him. As he walked along he 
was not thinking of the fencing of diplomatists, of squabbles about a 
frontier, of the chances of a Liberal majority, of the jrrobability that 
lie would be called upon to lead a Badical ministJ; 3 ^ He liked to be 
lifted out of the prosaic world of politics for a while, and he distinctly 
held the position that the night, even among streets, is always poetic. 
That vein in Morse’s nature which had poetry and mysticLm in it 
seemed to fill and flow under the influence of night. 

So they came, Morse and his follower, to Leicester Square. Leices¬ 
ter Square on Sunday evening had a very different look from that 
which it wore on a week night. Three sides of it were in shadow. 
Only the north end, where there were several restaurants and a 
chemist’s shop, with big red and green lamps, gave any suggestion of 
its usual flaring illumination. The theatres seemed strangely forlorn, 
and the Alhambra, with its dome-like roof, its long dark windows, its 
pale front and fantastic decorations, had a sad and ghostly appearance. 


82 


^^TllE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


There were but few people about; a hansom now and then clattered up 
to the floor of one of the restaurants, where the homeless stranger could 
liave a Sunday dinner. Kenway followed Morse to the opening of a 
dim and narrow street leading northward out of the square. The 
street began in light and went on into mere darkness. At the near 
corner was a brilliantly lighted French restaurant, one glass side open¬ 
ing on the square. Opposite it, the houses were dark, and further on, 
at the same side as the restaurant, they were dark too. Except for 
two dim gas-lamps nearly at the top of the street, all the light seemed 
concentrated here, and any one passing the illuminated windows could 
be seen as clearly as in daylight. 

Morse paused a moment, glanced quickly up the street, then crossed 
over to the side in shadow. He walked a little way along the pave¬ 
ment, turned, and crossed again. Between the restaurant and the 
adjoining block was a small flagged courtyard, enclosed by buildings 
except where it was fenced off from the road by an iron railing. It 
was feebly lighted by two round lamps facing each other, hung over doors, 
above one of which was painted “ Concierge.” The hotel itself stood far 
back, a grey sunken house, with an abutting sort ( f colonnade, and a 
mean entrance door. The upper windows were dark, except one, and 
that was curtained by a thick white blind. The house was lower than 
its neighbours, and between the chimney-pots patches of grey sky 
showed, and a thin moon was just rising. It all looked dim, mys¬ 
terious, and suggestive of intrigue. Innumerable memories of French 
novels floated into Ken way’s mind. Morse entered the courtyard, and 
went into the hotel. Kenway had been watching from a vantage 
point a little way up the street on the opposite side. When Morse 
had gone in, Ken way came down and had a look at the place. The 
courtyard was deserted again. A French chambermaid in a white cap 
with gauffred frills and streamers ran across, her sabots clacking, and 
disappeared into, the concierge’s office. Kenway skulked into the 
courtyard. He thought he heard voices in the lighted room upstairs. 
Once or twice he saw the shadow of a man cross the blind. He could 
almost have sworn that he caught a glimpse of Morse’s Napoleonic 
pjrofile. After a while there were no more shadows. Kenway peered 
round. The place had an odd foreign look, strange in the heart of 
I.ondon. Sickly shrubs in green boxes stood about. There was an 
old gun carriage in the centre of the court, with a beam of timber 
painted a dull leaden blue, doing duty as cannon, but with a pile of 
genuine balls formidably arranged below. “Just like England’s 
defences,” Kenway snarled and chuckled to himself. “ If we have the 
guns, we haven’t the bullets; if we have the bullets, we haven’t the 
guns. Things won’t be much better under a Peace Society Primf> 
Minister, I fancy.” It relieved him to say this, although only to him¬ 
self; and he crossed the street again and kept pacing up and down on 
the look-out. 

It was slow work waiting there that Sunday night; but Kenway 
waited. His sleuth-hound instincts were aided in their work by a 


^^AND SO—HALLO/” 


J^atience as untiring as th.at of the forest Indian watching his prey, or 
that of a heron perched on some jammed-up log in a river bank, and 
, waiting for a fish to give him a chance of a dinner. Occasionally some 
woman tried to get into talk with Kenway as he paced slowly up and 
down; he answered her with a word or two of good-humoured jest, 
and civilly shook her off. Now and then a policeman eyed him 
curiously, but soon, with a policeman’s instinct, saw that Kenway was 
what is called a gentleman, and that there was nothing in his case to 
have interest for the “worthy magistrate” on Monday morning. 
More than once a half-drunken wayfarer staggered u]) and accosted 
him with “ Give us a light, governor, won’t j'ou ? ” and Kenway, always 
with the most perfect good humour and politeness, took out his silver 
matchbox with its ingeniously-contorted monogram, and gave the 
requested fire. It 'was not always to much account, for more than one 
wayfarer found his legs too unsteady and his ])ipe too capricious to be 
able to benefit by the kindness of the “ governor.” Kenway was quite 
in his element, and liked the whole thing immensely. He was con¬ 
vinced that he was about to find something out. 

At last he saw two men come out of the door of the hotel. The 
men passed across the courtyard, and their figures were clearly out¬ 
lined against the light in the lower windows. Morse was one. There 
was no mistaking that figure and that walk. But who was the other ? 
The two went down the street, on the side opposite to that where 
Kenway stood in shadow; they did not look in his direction, but he 
could see them distinctly. He could hear their voices, although he 
could not make out what they were saying. Now the light of a lamp 
fell straight and full on them, and Kenway saw, to his disappointment 
at first, that the other man was Masterson. No creature could be got 
to associate the name of Masterson with any manner of amorous 
adventure or any gambling-house transaction. His presence alone 
would make scandal of that kind an impossibility. Had Kenway 
thrown all his time, his sleuth-hound instinct, his patience, utterly 
away ? 

No; another idea suddenly flashed upon him. Why, this is better 
still; the best that could be! That house is the head-quarters of some 
socialist and democratic conspiracy, and Morse has been induced to 
take some part in it. Morse, the man who hopes to be Prime Minister 
of England, comes down so low as to mix himself up with the mid¬ 
night councils of a gang of socialist and cosmopolitan revolutionists. 
It must be so, it cannot be anything else. Why, this is more interest¬ 
ing than all the gaming transactions from Monaco to the Mississippi. 
Ken way went nearer to the house. There must be others there; they 
would come out; he would see what manner of men they. were. His 
patience was soon rewarded; the men began to come out in little knots 
of two and three. Most of them were of the class of the regular 
London socialist; most were London working men. Even with 
Kciiway’s limited knowledge of such London life, he could read their 
class and their political creed in their earnest, eager, wistful faces. 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


84 

But there were others, too; there were foreign democrats, talking 
rapidly, some in French, some in German, some in Italian. Two or 
three, who came out together, conversed in a soft-sounding tongue 
which was unfamiliar to Kenway. He did not understand German or 
Italian; but he knew that this was German and that Italian when he 
heard it spoken. This language was entirely strange to him. He felt 
a special interest in the men who spoke it, and he went their way. He 
kept up with them, he walking on the other side of the street. They 
were going eastward; he might as well go eastward too, fora little v/ay. 

A new thought struck him. Why not contrive to interchange a 
woid or two with them? He took out his cigar-case, and acted on 
the hint given him by his “governor” accpiaintances. He crossed the 
street, and asked if any of the gentlemen could give him a light. They 
all stopped very civilly, and one of them tendered to him a box of fusees. 
A few courteous wiu'ds were naturally exchanged; two of the men at 
least si)oke fluent and perfect English, with only a faint foreign accent; 
the third man said nothing; perhaps he could not speak English. 
They were dressed in a way which suggested a cross between struggling 
artist and continental working-man ; between the Latin Quarter and 
the Faubourg Saint Antoine. Ken way had a keen eye, and it seemed 
to him that the garb was a get-up, that they were not wearing their 
own clothes, that they were socially of a better class than their out¬ 
ward appearance was meant to suggest. The quiet, courteous, self- 
assured way in which they all stopped the moment he spoke to them 
satisfied him that they were, in Society’s language, “ gentlemen.” “I 
rather fancy I know a gentleman when I see him,” Kenway said to 
himself. Kenway was always assuring himself and conveying to 
others that he was a constituted authority on all questions relating to 
the composition, origin, and ways of a gentleman. 

Now, then, here is the problem. A secret meeting long after mid¬ 
night in an out-of-the-way quarter—for Morse; the meeting attended 
by Masterson, the wild revolutionary socialist, who was always threat¬ 
ening that he and his men would descend into the streets; by several 
foreign democrats, lor such they evidently were; and by three men, 
dressed as artisans, who were clearly not artisans, and who spoke a 
language Kenway had never heard before, while two of them could 
also speak fluent and cultured English, \\diat was the language the 
three spoke? Ken way was not long in jumping to a conclusion. 
Why, what should it be but the language of the country with which 
England was likely to go to war? And at the secret midnight council 
in which these men took part, in which Masterson took part, in which 
foreign revolutionaries took part, the future Brime Minister of England 
was also taking part! Come, that was something to know, at all 
events. There might, no doubt, be some highly satisfactory explana¬ 
tion ; but the thing was curious. It was well to have found out what 
Ivenway had found out. He went home well pleased—more than 
pleased, highly delighted, with his night’s v/ork. 

Now, what were Morse and JMastcrs'm saying as they passed near to 


^^AND SO—HALLO 85 

where Crichton Kenway was standing in the shadow, watching them 
and trying to make out their words ? 

“ I am afraid it is of no use,” Morse said in a low tone; “ I don’t 
sec my way. I am with your ol>jects to a certain extent; you know 
that. 1 am a republican on principle. I don’t despair of seeing a 
republic established here, even in my time. I think our people could 
work a republic better than any other people in the world. I hope to 
found a republican party, open and avowed, if only as a training 
school. But you can’t force the thing in England.” 

“ That is the way of all you so-called practical men,” Masterson 
said angrily. “You see nothing; you foresee nothing. The revolu¬ 
tion is at your gates—hammering at your gates, and you are deaf; and 
you believe that to-morrow must be just the same as to-day.” 

“I don’t. I want to prepare for a to-morrow. An accident might 
bring the whole thing to a smash. A big defeat in some war ”—Morse 
spoke now with measured emphasis—“which was believed to be 
favoured by the Court, one big defeat, might upset the dynasty. The 
English people have not been tried in that sort of furnace yet. Perhaps 
they would be found not a whit more. ])atient than the French. We 
may see that tested; perhaps. After all, I am the best friend of the 
dynasty, I think,” he added, with a smile, “for I am doing my very 
best to prevent the test from being applied.” 

“ Will y('u even join with us to stop the succession at the end of 
this reign ? We have our plans and our resources. The country will 
have had enough of royalty by that time; sane men won’t be inclined 
to give it a fresli lease under worse conditions.” 

Morse shook his head. They wvre now walking along the darker 
side of Piccadilly, and had got to the railings of the Green Park and 
the deep shadow of the trees. 

“ To speak openly, Masterson, T doubt the i)lans, and I don’t believe 
in the resources. But I don’t mind telling you that if I were alive at 
- the end of the present reign, and I saw any genuine and wide-spread 
desire on the part of the English people not to start a new reign, I 
should—well-” 

“ Give the subject your best consideration, I dare nay,” Masterson 
interposed scornfully. “ That is your ministerial way of putting things 
in Parliament, isn’t it ? ” 

“No,” said Morse, composedly; “ I should go with that desire, and 
do my best to carry it out, let the end land me where it would. That’s 
all I have to say.” 

“ Well,” Masterson said, after a long pause, “ that is better than 
nothing; especially from you who mean all you say, and more. But 
you do not go with us, in the meantime?” 

“ No; positively not. You are all in the clouds, and I am only able 
to Avalk the firm earth.” 

“Then what do you think of our general purposes ; our broader and 
more comprehensive purposes; our })urposes for all humanity : not f>r 
England alone ? ” 


£6 


“77/i: RIGHT HONOUTABLET 


RIori-e turned to Masterson with a look of somethi^'g like compassion. 
Then he said—“ Your cosmopolitanism ? I don’t like the thing at all. 
And I tell you fraiddy, Masterson, I couldn’t have anything to do wdth 
it. I don't believe one bit in mixing up our atfairs with those of your 
continental democrats. Their aims are not ours; their ways are not 
ours. We \vant reform, and they understand nothing but revolution, 
and social revolution, too-” 

“ So do I,” Masterson broke in. “ I want social revolution ; in other 
words, I want the salvation of England. Nothing but social revolution 
can save her.” 

“Yes; but your social revolution is not their social revolution, don’t 
you see? You can’t long work together. Besides, look here, I don’t 
like these three gentlemanlike fellows at all. I do not trust them. 
For God’s sake, Masterson, don’t you trust in them ! Do you really 
believe that these men, who belong to the country which five out of 
every six Englishmen declare to be our unrelenting enemy, can have 
the interest of England at heart ? ” 

“Not the interest of Englmd,’’ Masterson said sharply. “You don’t 
underst ind, Morse; you won’t understand. They have the interest of 
humanity at heart; the interest of the brotherhood of both countries, 
and of all countries. Good heavens! is it possible you don’t see that 
there is some stronger and nobler bond than the mere chance bond of 
nationality? It is strange that a man like you should so cruelly mis¬ 
understand men like them.” 

“Will you bear to be told what I think of them?” Morse asked, 
and he stopped short and put his hand gently on Masterson’s shoulder. 
“ Dear old friend, will you be offended with me if I tell you what 1 
suspect—for your own sake ? ” 

“ Say anything you like, Morse; I can stand it from you.” 

“ Well, then, 1 strongly suspect that these men are the secret agents 
of that Govei ninent winch they profess to detest; the Government of 
their own countiy.” 

“ Oh! ” Masterson drew away with a cry and a look of utter disgust. 
“ I am horrified, Morse! Such a suspicion, so unworthy of you ! 
'1 hese true-hearted, devoted men 1 You must see more of them. You 
must learn to know them.” 

“ No, old man; I don’t want to see them again. I only wish I could 
get you not to see them again.” 

Masterson shook his head impaliently. 

“ Well, I know it i.>n’t easy to turn you from any opinion or any 
purpose; and I can only say I am sorry I couldn’t have anything to 
do with the business, Masterson. Nothing good will come of it; nothing 
but harm. I would save my dear old friend Irom it if I could, but I 
can’t; and so—hallo I ” 

“So what?” Masterson asked in wonder, at what seemed to him 
unmeaning levity. 

“ I beg your ])ardon,” Morse said, with a smile. “ It’s a trick I got 
from Iiichter, Jean Paul, you know—a way he has of putting an end 



THE FAMILY DINNER. 


87 


to some argument that can’t come to anything. My wife and I have 
fallen into the way of using it, and have dismissed many an unmanage¬ 
able subject with ‘and so—hallo!’ Well, I can’t convince yon, 
Masterson, and you can’t convince me; but we are good friends still, 
and ever shall be to the end of the chapter, I trust; and so—hallo! ” 
Masterson was not much of a humourist, but a sort of faint percep¬ 
tion stole upon him that this, indeed, was about as good a way as any 
of getting out of a hopeless controversy. He made a brave effort to rise 
for once to the level of a joke, and as they were about to part in Picca¬ 
dilly he fell back a little, then came towards Morse, grasped his hand 
with a grip of strength—to which Morse replied by a grip still stronger 
—and exclaimed— 

“ And so—hallo! ” 

Then they went literally and figuratively their different ways. 


CITAPTEll XI. 

THE FAMILY DINNER. 

“ The Family,” to use Crichton Kenway’s expression, represented in 
Koorali's imagination an awful and indefinite quantity, the length, 
breadth, and depth of which she felt hopeless of gauging. 

For some time after her arrival in England she was bewildered by 
the fact that the family were not Kenways at all. The only Kenways 
besides themselves appeared to be a younger brother of her husband— 
between whom and Crichton there had been an ill-feeling which now 
seemed to retard their affectionate meeting—and his wife, a Sheffield 
heiress, whom he had lately married, and concerning whose manners 
and parentage dark hints and ominous presages circulated. These 
a])parently were not included in the family. 

To be sure, there was Mrs. Kenvvay, Crichton’s mother, who lived 
with a companion in a street near Bryanston Square; but she was an 
old lady with a chronic malady, which had slightly impared her wits. 
Her limp personality was not held in much account even by her son ; 
and this seemed a little hard, considering that but for her the family, 
in relation to the Kenways, would have had no existence. 

For Mrs. Kenway had been a Miss Nevile-Beauchamp, who it was 
understood had lowered herself ever so much by marrying a man of no 
county status or connection with the aristocracy. The Kenways, it 
may be set forth as a matter of fact, had not owned the Grey Manor 
from time immemorial, as Crichton Kenway would have liked every 
one to believe. The Grey Manor had in reality belonged to a family 
extinct half a century ago, and one Kenway, a London merchant, had 
bought both manor and ancestry, but had unfortunately only been able 
to keep the latter. 

The elder branch of the Nevile-Beauchamps, on the other hand, 
claimed kindred with an historic marquisate. The present marquis 


88 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


was a long off from the younger branches. There were a good many 
gradations of lords by courtesy, and honourables, before he could be 
got at. Still, there he was, an undoubted fact. He was a Catholic; 
and this section of the Nevile-Beauchamps in which the Kenways were 
merged had in it a strong Catholic element. Mrs. Kenway, senior, had 
been one of many brothers and sisters. The women, it was curious 
to observe, were more essentially Kevile-Beauchamps than the men. 
These had married and brought in collateral relations, so that it was 
no wonder if Koorali did not at once get to the bottom of the family. 
Some of therri had married Protestants, with country estates and fat 
livings, and had made a compromise in the matter of religion; but 
they had nevertheless kept some of the exclusiveness and narrow 
culture which belongs to the English Catholic by birth. No member 
was supposed to take any important step in life except for general 
family interests and with the full concurrence of the family. This 
having been obtained, the case admitted of no further question. The 
Nevile-Beauchamps had a constitution of their own, and new laws 
could be passed, or old ones amended, by a majority. To make an 
undignified comparison, “We and the World” might have been chosen 
as their motto, as in the case of a certain hen in one of Hans Andersen’s 
stories. No phalanx could have been more compact, no circle rounder. 
Koorali had not yet been made a part of the phalanx or admitted into 
the circle. The Nevile-Beauchamps discouraged alliances outside the 
county families. They thought that Crichton would have done well 
to wait, ancl choose a wife in England. He might become a rising man 
when he ceased to be Agent-General. The colonies they considered 
rather vulgar. They discovered that Koorali had been married without 
settlements. A woman with a father who had not insisted upon 
settlements must certainly be incapable of appreciating the serious 
responsibilities of life. It was within the bounds of possibility that 
she and her boys might fall a burden on the family. The family, 
therefore, had better be wary in its advances. A woman who had a 
way of sitting absolutely silent when Conservative politics were being 
discussed must be an idiot. The Nevile-Beauchamps were Tories of 
the rabidly personal kind. ''J'hey had no scruples in declaring that 
Mr. Gladstone ought to be hanged, that Mr. Chamberlain deserved 
quartering as well, and that nothing short of burning at the stake 
was adequate punishment for the Home Bulers. Koorali sometimes 
in her dreamy way fancied that there might be a case on the other 
side. But that was her odd fashion; she saw two sides to every 
question. 

A woman who never looked into the Almanack de Gotha or the 
Peerage, who did not warm into enthusiasm over the domestic virtues 
of the sovereign, who had no notion of working in crewels or painting 
on china, who cared nothing about the class distinction between upper 
and lower servants, between townsfolk and county people; to whom 
church preferment, tenants’ rights, kettledrums, game laws, social 
precedence, and Debrett, were all dark mysteries ; such a woman must 


THE FAMILY DINNER. 89 

surely hide beneath a gentle exterior something dangerous and antago¬ 
nistic to all that was most holy and orthodox. 

Thus it was that at first Koorali had been welcomed rather tenta¬ 
tively ; and it was not till the bride, Mrs. Eustace Ken way, appeared 
on the scene that a seri s of dinner-parties were organized. At the 
second of these—]\Irs. Eustace characteristically refused the first—the 
two sisters-in-law met. This happened on the night of that very day 
on which Morse had called at the Crichton Kenways’. Koorali was 
dreaming. She seemed to wake up with a curious, shy smile, when 
any one spoke to her. She scarcely knew most of the people present, 
and shrank from the gaze of twenty pairs of clear British eyes. She 
felt a nervous dread of saying the wrong thing. She had been tutored, 
and forgot her lesson. At last she took refuge in abstractedness. Yet 
she had an under-consciousness that Crichton was watching her, and 
was vexed because she did not make a more startling impression. 
Koorkli wished a little bitterly that she had been born large and im¬ 
posing, that she had great blue eyes, massive shoulders, and withes of 
fair hair, like the biggest of the lady cousins present. The Nevile- 
Beauchamps were mostly large. Even those with little flesh had 
height, and nothing about them suggestive of the aerial or the imagi¬ 
native. There were four aunts, three of them freshly arrived from 
country estates, to whom, while the guests were assembling, Koorali 
was solemnly introduced. They were all well preserved, well dressed, 
their lace Flemish of fine quality doing duty for fashion of cut in 
sleeve and bodice; they all had bright, hard, observant eyes, thin 
practical lips, and mellow dogmatic voices. One knows the type. It 
is provincial, even when it has a town house and is mated with a 
baronet and a rent-roll. Lady Canteloupe owned a bucolic-looking 
husband, from whom—it was her glory to declare—she had never, 
since their union, been separated for a single night. This had been the 
boast of her two predecessors. It was a family tradition. Miss 
Nevile-Beauchamp when she married took it upon her shoulders. 
Lady Canteloupe had once had congestion of the lungs, and a physician 
had advised a winter in the South. Could Sir John be torn from his 
shorthorns? No. The Canteloupes never went abroad. The Cante- 
loupc ladies died at home. Lady Canteloupe was true to her adopted 
traditions; but she got better. 

Aunt Ecclesworth was more buxom, but not less severe. There was 
a faint suggestion of the fox-hunting element about her. Perhaps she 
had caught it from her husband, who was an IM.F.H., and her tw’o 
daughters good cross-country riders, healthy, vigorous damsels, with 
no nonsense about them. 

Aunt Le Marchant was great apparently at agriculture, and was dis¬ 
cussing siloes with a benevolent elderly Mr. Nevile-Beauchamp when 
Koorali made her little obeisance. 

“Mrs. Crichton Ken way! IPs Mrs. Eustace who has the money, 
and you are the Australian. Yes; I went to see poor Louisa this 
afternoon, and she explained it to mo as well as she could, poor dear. 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


90 

I have come to town expressly to be near her, and look after her a 
little. I hope you like lhi. 2 ;land, Mrs. Crichton. Do 3 ou have agricul¬ 
tural dei-ression in Australia?” 

“ We have a good deal of depression,” answered Koorali simply. 
“It’s geneially amon-^ sheep and cattle.” 

“Exactly,” said Mr. Nevile-Beauchamp, who spoke with a drawl, 
and always prefacid his lemaiks with an ejaculation. He turned a 
close-shaven face, with the bland im{)erturbable look of a Japanese doll, 
on Koorali. “Here it’s generally among landlords and glebe-owners.” 

Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp, who was the host, and had ntade the 
introduction, laughed softly, and drew Koorali on. !Mrs. Le Marchant 
was now in a position to state that the new niece-in-law might be 
pretty, but was certainly very odd-looking, and had fearfully colonial 
manners. 

“7/er husband is a Squarson,” said Admiral Ncvile-Beauchamp, as 
though he were explaining everything. Koorali only vaguely wondered 
what a Squarson might be. She \vas not familiar with the witticisms 
of S 3 Mney Smith. Just then a Miss Nevile-Beauchamp accosted her 
—another aunt, who, however, was unmarried, and liked to be called 
by her Christian name—appropriate!}’’ Diana—without a prefix. She 
had already made Koorali’s acquaintance. 

“ I was going to call on you to-day,” she said; “ but I have had so 
much to do shopping, and the Le Marchants staying; and though it 
is a great pleasure to have any of the relations with us—w'e are such 
a united family—still, taking them up and setting them dowm, and 
pictures, and their boys to be entertained, and special services and 
German Reeds and Maskelyne and Cooke—it all makes so much for 
the carriage. We went to a lecture at the British Museum, this after¬ 
noon,” continued kliss Diana. “ It was on Egyptian antiquities and 
inscriptions, by a lady. She had got it all up out of books, and all the 
ancient customs, and the hieruglyijhics, and the Pyramids, don’t you 
know. But as she had never been in the country, 1 thought we might 
have read it all up for ourselves. And then these dyuamitards are 
going to blow up the British Museum next; and I didn’t really think 
it was worth risking our lives—now, do you ? ” 

Koorali assented. 

Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp approached. She was the hostess—the 
Kitty of whom Crichton had spoken, who had social ambition, and 
would like to know Lady Betty Morse. She was a little woman, with 
a ])urring voice and cat-like feminine ways. Her face was soft and 
rather pretty. She <lressed trimly in perfect taste, and knew just the 
right amount of rouge to put on, and just how far her eyebrows and 
eyelashes might be accentuated. She had a little air of feline dignity 
and rectitude, and of admirable self-confidence. She went in rather 
for fads in decoration, pretty devices in lamp shades, a hotch-potch of 
effects—bulrushes and blue china. She had gained quite a reputation 
among the Nevile-Beauchamps for originality and the brilliance of her 
entertainments. If she had not been accepted without reservations 


THE FAMILY DINNER, 


91 

the family might have felt a little scandalized sometimes at the highly 
respectable samples of the literary, artistic, and theatrical professions 
to be seen occasionally at her parties. As it was, Kitty was indulged 
and admired as being “quite unlike anybody else;” and when she 
gave her dress a little pat, preened her small head, and observed in her 
staccato manner, with her little emphases here and there, “ I do not 
say that I am an authority, but I think it right to contribute my 
tiny suggestion,” that always settled a mooted point. 

“ I have a letter for you, dear Diana. I do maintain that I take no 
responsibility, though I know what it is about—a bazaar in which I 
am interested. It was sent to me to be i)Osted, and now I can give it 
to you and get it off my mind.” 

“ A bazaar! ” exclaimed Miss Nevile-Beauchamp. “ Oh, I hope no 
one has asked me to do anything. I really cannot. I am far too busy. 
If it had been for some charity in London—but a coflee-house in the 
country ! Put it in the waste-paper basket, dear—or stay, I may as 
well keep the unused stamp.” 

Miss Nevile-Beauchamp carefully detached the stamp, and just then, 
as Mrs. Kitty was remarking, “ It really is too bad of people to keep 
every one else waiting,” Mr. and Mrs. Eustace Ken way were announced. 

The heiress got her clothes in Paris, that was evident. Only Worth 
could have produced so startling an arrangement. The marvellous 
satin petticoat embroidered in wreaths of gold and silver, cunningly 
interspersed with humming-birds’ plumage; the gorgeous velvet train, 
the twinkling diamonds, the high-heeled buckled shoes, the humming¬ 
bird fan of Palais Koyal design, the long gold-embroidered gloves, all 
these details quite distracted attention for a moment from the face and 
figure of Mrs. Eustace Kenway herself. 

“ Oh, what bad style; what very bad style! ” murmured Lady 
Canteloupe. 

“Money in the funds—not land,” briefly commented the wife of the 
Squarson. 

“ Puts one in mind of ‘ New Men and Old Acres,’ or something of 
that sort,” whispered Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp to Koorali. 

But the face, with its clear skin—a little too russet in tint—its 
open, brown, dog-like eyes, its somewhat blunt features and crop of 
short dark hair curled closely to the head, was frank, fresh, and 
taking; and the figure, though it was square and robust, with much 
roughness of movement and gesture, had a certain British, milkmaid 
comeliness of its own—the sort of face and figure suited to a linen 
blouse or flannel boating-dress, which would have seemed at home in 
a hay field, 011 a tennis ground, romping with dogs, or wielding a pair of 
sculls ; but w^hich w'as singularly out of keeping with Parisian fripperies. 

Mrs. Eustace, coming forward wuth firmly planted feet and squared 
elbows, like a school-girl in a hurry, made her apologies. 

“ I am afraid we are b-bcastly late,” she began. She had the slightest 
hesitation in her speech, and fought a little with her school-boy slang. 
“It was all Eustace’s fiiult, though. He won’t hurry. I can’t make 


“77/Zi RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


92 

liira hurry. I like to go through life quick—d-double trot. He don’t. 
I’m always ready before him. Ain’t I, Jo?” 

She ap])ealed, as she shook hands with her hostess, to a dark pretty girl 
following behind, dressed very quietly in black, who answered meekly— 

“ Yes, Zen ; you are always ready.” 

The brothers said, “How do you do?” as unemotionally as though 
they had only been parted a dozen hours. Eustace did not look as 
though he could be emotional. He was rather after Crichton’s pattern, 
only not so tall, and without his long neck. He was more withered 
up and neutral-looking. He wore an eye-glass. Ilis clothes, or some¬ 
thing about him, gave one the impression that he had lived a good 
deal in Paris. By the time he had made his new sister’s acquaintance 
the move to dinner began. Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp led the way 
with Koorali, and, as a compromise, Eustace Kenway brought up the 
rear with Mrs. Kitty. 

“ I met a friend of yours the other night, at Lady Betty Morse’s 
party, Mrs. Eustace,” said Crichton Kenway across the table to his 
sister-in-law. “ Lord Arden, I mean.” 

Mrs. Eustace had just answered the Master of Foxhounds’ question 
whether she liked hunting with the declaration- 

“It’s the only b-blooming thing I can do.” She paused a moment, 
and there was an odd little change in her voice, as she said, “ I don’t 
know Lord Arden well. I shouldn’t say he was a friend of mine. I 
met him in Rome, ever so long ago. My mother took me to Rome. 
She said it would improve my mind. I did my Peter’s and my Vati¬ 
can, but it didn’t improve me^ not one little bit.” 

“ Now, really! ” drawled Mr. Nevile-Beauchamp, who tvas always a 
little behind the conversation. “ Hunting the only thing you can do ! 
But there h something else, Mrs. Eustace ? You know how to talk 
slang.” 

“ Yes,” returned Mrs. Eustace imperturbably—“and I know how to 
slang the peoidc I don’t like. I picked it up from the boys. There 
was an old man living next us, with six boys and not a woman in the 
house. I learned a great deal from them. Ask Jo.” 

“ Who is Jo?” asked Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp, who was rather 
enjoying himself between the two Mrs. Kenw.ays. He found Koorali 
interesting, and Mrs. Eustace decidedly amusing. 

“ She is the young lady I brought with me. Her name is Jose]>hine. 
YovUd call her Miss Garling, though she is a relation of yours. I found 
her in a ^pension. She’s an orphan, don’t you know. Her mother was 
a Nevile-Beauchamp. You’d all like to suppress her—oh yes, I know, 
don’t tell me! You’d like to suppress rue —but you can’t. Admiral 
Nevile-Beauchamp—not mucii! Isn’t there any way of shortening 
your name ? It’s a name and a-half now.” 

“ You might call me Abraham. That’s what I was christened. I 
don’t know that it’s much better. I don’t want to suppress you, Mrs. 
Eustace. On the contrary, Pll give 5'ou every opportunity to dart u]> 
like a Jack-iu-the-box, and astonish us all. We are a dull set.” 


THE FAMILY DINNER, 


93 

“Well—I should think you were—just a little,” returned Mrs. 
Eustace, impartially surveyin'^ the table, “ some of you. I expect I 
shall astonish you. My mother says I astonish every one. She says 
my manners are dreadful. I tell her it’s her fault. She should have 
blown me up. And she didn’t. Nobody ever did.” 

“ It isn’t likely that any one will begin to reprimand you now, Mrs, 
Eustace,” gallantly put in old Mr. Nevile-Beauchamp. 

“ Well, it’s nice of you to say that,” returned Mrs. Eustace. “ You 
were better up to time theu. And now I’m going to talk to you a bit. 
Do you like dogs ? If you do, you must come and stay with me, and 
I’ll show you my street of kennels. I’ve got twenty-eight at the 
Priory-by-the-W ater.” 

Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp turned to Koorali. 

“ So you’ve met Arden. He’s coming in to-night. He’s a queer 
fellow, but not so queer as his father. Lord Forrest. Aiden gets things 
on the brain. He has temperance and virtue on the brain just now. 
I knew him in the South Seas, when I was commodore out there. 
He had Pacific-lsleomania then. Do you know what that is, Mrs. 
Crichton ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Koorali. “ In Australia my sitting-room was hung with 
tapa^ and my boys had a Kanaka for a nurse.” 

“ It’s fatal while it lasts, Pacific-lsleomania. If you want any more 
tapa^ I’ll give you some to set a new fashion, or to wear at a fancy 
ball. I found Arden blossomed into a representative of her Majesty— 
what would that old Jacobite his father have said?—with a seal as big 
as this plate, and power to make treaties with native princes, which 
the Government here at home was bound to ratify.” 

“Did he depose any reigning sovereigns or annex any territory?” 
asked Koorkli. 

“No; happily for Lord Derby. He rummaged about the islands, 
trying to convert the white reprobates to moralite. There’s a white 
man on every island, Mrs. Crichton. I don’t know how they got there, 
but there they are—and the scum of the earth into the bargain. First, 
the scum of England goes to Botany Bay. Excuse me, if I hurt your 
feelings. The scum of Botany Bay goes to Fiji. The scum of Fiji 
goes to Samoa; and from Samoa floats to the islands. It’s a long 
process,” 

“I’ll tell you what’s a long process ! ’’exclaimed Mrs. Eustace, “ and 
that is dinner on a fast day. I’m a Catholic, Mrs. Crichton, and I was 
at a party last night, and forgot to eat my supper before twelve o’clock. 
I hope you’ll give us some supper after twelve to-night, Admiral. I 
like good things to eat.” 

The sign was given, and the ladies departed. It was Mrs. Nevile- 
Beauchamp’s reception night, and the rooms soon began to fill, so that 
Koorkli and Zenobia were not lon^ left to the tender mercies of the 
women of the family. Though the party was supposed to be small and 
early, it was in reality very crowded, and Koorali was allowed to sit 
comparatively unnoticed, 'fliis would have annoyed Ciichton, had he 


94 


RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


been aware of it, but he did not at first perceive her, and was studying 
the company on his own account. 

Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp’s parties were amusing, and if her celebrities 
were for the most part of the second and third rate order, some of them 
at all events were in the theatrical and artistic set. Politicians and 
diplomatists did not come to Mrs. Nevile-Beauchami^’s house, nor was 
it the resort of the frivolous “ smart ” set. 4 'he court flavour was 
distinctly wanting. Some actors and actresses, however, who were in 
society, might be found there; some poets and painters of the Piossetti 
school; composers and drawing-room singers and reciters, who gave 
their performances gratis, and were not herded like goats among sheep, 
but chattered in broken French and Italian, and gave a sort of life to 
the entertainment. Crichton Kenway, not yet very well versed in the 
intricacies of London society, wandered about making observations. 
Comparing this assemblage with that at Lady Betty Morse’s house, he 
came to the conclusion that though it was his fixed intention to shine 
in the highest sphere, this one was on the whole more enjoyable, and 
not to be despised, seeing that it offered facilities for gaining the ear of 
society journalists, for securing admission to studios and private views, 
and perhaps getting a glimpse at an artist’s pretty model now and 
then ; perhaps receiving an invitation for Koorali to sit for her portrait 
to a Royal Academician. He had learned that there was one present. 

Miss Jo had communicated the fact. He found that, in spite of her 
demure look and recent residence in a foreign j^ension, to say nothing of 
her being one of the family, she was a very well-informed yo'.ing lady 
as to the ins and outs of London life. She knew who every one was, 
and commented upon each in a quiet little voice. 

“ They are nearly all Bohemians here,” she saM ; but they are all 
awfully proper Bohemians. They are very particular. Some of them 
get married twice over, to make sure. Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp wouldn’t 
have any that Averen’t strictly proper. I think some of the improper 
ones are more interesting, don’t you?” 

Kenway assented with a man-of-thc-world air; but he thought to 
himself that he would set Lady Canteloupe on Jo, for she was hardly a 
credit to the famil3\ 

“Like the people in ‘ Claire,’ ” continued the young lady, naming a 
novel which was not considered food for babes and sucklings. “ There’s 
the man w’ho wrote ‘ Claire.’ He’s like his books, there’s a bad taste 
about him, but I think he’s perfectly splendid. He’s mashed on Mrs. 
Melville, the actress—who makes you laugh so in ‘ Barefaced’—don’t 
3'ou know V She doesn’t make you laugh much off the stage ; she is 
rather stupid. A great many of them are. Now we must stop, I 
suppose, because Gallup is going to fool for a bit.” 

When Mr. Gallup, the comic singer, had “ fooled for a bit,” as Miss 
Jo and her patroness Zen expressed it, another comedian stood up, and, 
after making a few faces, made a speech. 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “ I am accustomed to sing on the 
stage, and retreat by the wings to this sort of sound,” and he feebly 


THE FAMILY DINNER. 


95 

clapped his hands. “ I don’t see any wings, and I don’t hear any 
clapping, so I shall sit down again.” 

Every one applauded this as being extremely witty. 

Afterwards, an a3sthetic young lady, in a red gown with a sacque, 
played the zither. People began to move about more, and Crichton 
lost Miss Jo. d'here was nothing for him to do but listen to the scraps 
of conversation, which were principally of the artistic shop kind. 
Crichton felt rather out of it, but decided that he was quite superior to 
this kind of com[)nny. 

He heard a wild-looking lady remarking plaintively, “ Oh, I’m never 
at home on vSaturday afternoons, Pm always hunting after engagements 
at matinees.” 

A little further on, a young man who looked hardly equal to the 
exertion of carrying his oi)era hat, was delivering himself of the 
statements, Well, Zola is out of fashion now; he is quite Philistine 
and behind the time. Our school is infinitely more realistic than Zola. 
We would show life as it is, if only we could get our works published.” 
While another young man remarked mournfully, “ Publishers want 
suppressing.” 

“ And managers,” put in a third gentleman, whom Crichton inferred 
to be a writer of plays. 

Mrs. Eustace meanwhile had sought her sister-in-law, to whom she 
had in her impulsive way taken a fancy. 

“I mean to come and have lunch with you one day,” she said abruptly. 

“ I shall be very glad,” answered Koorali shyly. “ What day will 
you come ? ” She took courage, and spoke more eagerly. 

“ I wonder if you’ll tumble to me,” continued Mrs. Eustace reflec¬ 
tively. There was something wilful in her eyes as she looked into 
Koorali’s face. She began drawing on one of her long French gloves. 
“ Oh, I hate putting my fat pads into coverings ! ” she exclaimed inter- 
jectionally. “I don’t expect you’ll like me; Eustace’s people don’t. 
Eustace thinks I have very bad manners, only he is too polite to say 
so. Is your husband polite ? ” 

“ I suppose so,” faltered KoorMi, startled by the abrupjtncss of the 
question. 

“ I never saw him before to-night, you know. I don’t know whether 
I want to see him again to-morrow. I want to see you though. He 
has an appointment, hasn’t he ? ” ^ 

“ He is Agent-General for South Britain,” replied Koorali. 

“It takes a lot of cleverness to. get an appointment like that, don’t 
it ? He looks as if he knew that. I say!—he doesn’t want to let one 
know that he thinks no end of himself, but he does, all the same. He’s 
got his eye on us now. 1 should just say he was weighing us in a pair 
of scales, shouldn’t you ? You’ve got the b-beauty, you know, and the 
—the rest of it—manners, and all that—and I’ve got the shekels.” 

“Oh! ” exclaimed KoorMi, drawn from her reserve by this childlike 
frankness, “ I wish it were so. I don’t always know what to say. I’m 
so shy. It’s all strange. I don’t know what is expected of one.” 


96 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.” 


“Well, I dare say that'll wear off,’ observed Mrs. Eustace, com¬ 
placently unfurling her fan. “My mother thinks I’m horrid,” she 
pursued; “but I don’t much mind that, for she is horrid herself.” 

“Your mother I” repeated Koorali, in wonder. 

“ She is not my real mother, she is my stepmother. I don’t mind 
telling you that she is awfully had form, very v-vulgar. Lord bless 
you, even I can see that. She always let me do any blessed thing I 
pleased, and have just whatever I howled for, and that was the only 
good thing about her. Not that it was so very good either. My jolly 
old guardians said she had a beastly bad effect upon me. My guardians 
wanted to get me away from her. IMy guardians wanted to get rid of 
the responsibility, and so they bothered me into marrying. I didn’t 
want to marry. I wanted to have some fun out of life first. I think 
its awfully slow to be married.” 

“ M}’’ dear Mrs. Eustace, what terrible sentiments for a bride,” said 
^Trs. Nevile-Beauehamp, perching herself gracefully upon an early- 
English settee beside the sisters-in-law. “ You must forgive me for 
admiring the embroidery on your dress. It is quite magnificent.” 

“Yes, I like it. I think it’s pretty smart,” said the bride, in her odd 
blunt way, stroking the gorgeous wreaths with a most simple satisfac¬ 
tion. “ A Frenchman designed it for me. He died just aftervvards. I 
sent him a wreath for his coffin.” 

Mrs. Nevile-Beauehamp moved off to receive some entering guests. 
“ I don’t like Kitty—much,” announced Mrs. Eustace. “ She asked 
me to call her Kitty. May I call you by your name ? It’s a funny 
one, ain’t it ? ” 

“ Koorali.” 

“Koorali!” she repeated. “And mine’s Zenobia. I don’t know 
why they gave it me. What does it mean ? It’s too showy for my 
style, ain’t it V But most people call me Zen. It’s shorter.” 

“ I am sure that we shall be good friends, Zen,” said Koorilli. 

“ Well, anyhow, w^e can stand up together against the old bounders 
—I mean the family,” said Zen, with an odd little twist of her head 
that set all her diamonds twinkling. “ But you don’t know anything 
about mo yet.” 

“Yes, i do,” replied Koorali. “Lord Arden told me something 
about you; and he said that 1 should like you very much.” 

Zenobia let her fan fall, and turned her eyes full upon Koorali. 

“ Tell me exactly what he said,” she commanded. 

“ He said that you were frank and unaffected, and that you had not 
been spoiled.” 

“ He’d better not ask the jolly old guardians, or Eustace. Anvthin" 
else?” 

“ No—at least, nothing very particular.” 

“ Come, there was ! There was something else. Tell it me— 
quick.” 

Koorali smiled, and said reluctantly, “ Only that you had scraped 
the Priory.” 


THE FAMILY DINNER. 


97 


Mrs. Eustrice stared. 

“Well; it wanted cleaning. / don’t like to see a house covered 
with green mould, and grass growing on the tops of the walls. Clean, 
clean ; I want every thing clean, don’t you know. And perhaps you’ll 
not mind my being imperious. Eustace says I’m imperious ;—it’s his 
word. I don’t see how I could help it. Of course I mean to have my 
own way. What’s the good of living at all if one don’t get one’s own 
way ? ’’ 

There flashed through Kooriili’s mind something Morse had said to 
her. She remembered when she had been young, like Zen, and had 
expected to have everything her own way. She met suddenly Zen’s 
wistful glance, which was somehow in contradiction with all the rest of 
her. In spite of her ofl-hand manner, Zen had a watchful observant 
look, as though she were feeling her way. 

“I wish you’d tell me what you are thinking,” she said; and went 
on without waiting for a reply. “ I always like to turn people inside 
out. When I’m talking fastest, I am always thinking most.” Zenobia’s 
eyes were at that moment fixed upon the door. Lord Arden had 
entered, and was shaking hands with his hostess. “ Mrs. Nevile- 
Beauchamp is a c-cat,” continued Zenobia. “ She wants to manage 
me. I’d like to see her do it! I don’t go in for being managed. She 
is very clever. She is so clever that one is obliged to notice it. The 
cleverest people are the ones who make you believe they are stupid. 
Ain’t that so. Lord Arden?” she added abruptly, addressing Lord 
Arden, who had at once made his way to them. 

Zenobia held out her hand, her face beaming. It was evident that 
she was glad to see him. 

Lord Arden talked to Zenobia for a few minutes, and then some 
chance turn in the conversation drew Koorali into it. Something 
or other brought up the subject of colonial populations and subject 
races, whereon Lord Arden was strong, being filled with the principles 
of the Aborigines’ Protection Society and Mr. F. W. Chesson. Lord 
Arden began giving out his views in a deprecatory sort of way; and 
only because Koorali asked for them. He expected probably to find 
in Mrs. Kenway, the daughter of a colonial prime minister, a shrill 
feminine representative of the views of the old-fashioned colonist, who 
held that the soil of the colonies was given to him by providential 
decree to hold for him and his heirs for ever, and that the aborigines 
were put into his hands by divine design, in order that through his 
energetic agency they might be improved olF the face of all creation 
when they had ceased to be of any further use to him. Lord Arden 
was much surprised to find that Koorali went far indeed with his 
ideas, and was full of sympathy with the natives and of anger against 
the utter selfishness of some of the colonists. From one topic they 
passed on to another, until Koorali found herself talking with eager¬ 
ness, animation, and even volubility. The young philanthropist was 
fairly charmel with her; and before half an hour it came to this, that 
Lord Arden w;is gravely consul ring Koorali on some question con- 


93 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


iiected with the South Sea Lslaiuls; was eagerly interposing, “but 
then, Mrs. Ken way, is it your opinion?” or “what I was particularly 
anxious to have your ideas about, IMrs. Kenway, was this; ” until 
Zenobia’s breath was fairly taken away. 

“ j\Iy goodness,” she said at last, when a pause came in the conver¬ 
sation—a pause which she knew would most certainly be filled up at 
once if she did not strike in—“ you are a pair to talk! Why, Koorali, 
you do take me off my feet. To think of your knowing all about these 
things, and being so clever! Who would have thought it of a delicate 
little shrinking thing like you? Why, I didn’t suppose you could say 
boh to a goose! ” 

“ You were wrong, you see; she can say boh to me,'” Lord Arden 
said, with a smile. “ She has said boh to some of my choicest theories 
very effectively, I can assure you.” 

“Has she really? ” Zenobia asked innocently. “Well, my dear, it 
strikes me that, though there are only two of us, the flimily won’t get 
much change out of us two. I say, shan’t we just give them fits, you 
and me? I suppose it’s ‘you and I,’ Lord Arden ain’t it? But I never 
could quite make out, and it sounds funny, don’t it—that ‘ I ’ standing 
all alone at the end of a sentence?” 

“ Like the criminal in the dock,” Arden said gravely, “ when the 
judge has finished the words of doom.” 

“ Yes; that’s it, now,” Zenobia said simply. But to think of you 
two taking so much interest in the affairs of other folks, and foreigners, 
and niggers, and all that lot! Why, I w’as never taught to take the 
least little bit of interest in anj^ mortal thing but my own concerns. 
Yes; I have been jolly badly brought up,” Zenobia went on rcflec- 
tivel}^ looking straight before her with the Wistful yet alert expression 
in her brown eyes; “ that gets more and more clear to me as I go on 
and meet peof)le. Kooiali, niy dear thing, won’t you teach me to 
think about niggers and people as well as myself? Lord Arden, will 
you—like ever such a good chap, I wish you would—show me how I 
am to think about my fellow-man sometimes ? After I have done up 
the Priory,” she added. “I haven’t time just now. It takes a lot of 
thinking when you’re lining your rooms with plush; and you want it 
dyed to suit your complexion.” 

“ I hope you will think about me sometimes, as one fellow-man,” 
Lord Arden said gallantly. 

“ Oh, that I shall 1 ” Zenobia replied, with a certain innocent fervour 
in her tone. It was beginning to be faintly borne in upon her that 
there were other objects of interest to human beings in this world than 
gowns embroidered with humming-birds, and the furniture and trap¬ 
pings of a rich woman’s house. 

Just then Admiral Nevile-Beauchamp brought up a Grosvenor 
Gallery painter, and introduced him to Mrs. Eustace Kenway—to 
the annoyance of Crichton, who had been watching the little group. 
Zenobia accepted the painter’s arm and his invitation to go downstairs. 
He being of the Burne Jones school, cast a startled glance at her 


THE FAMILY DINNER. 


99 

gorgeous drnperies as she rose, but Zen straightened her feather- 
trimmed train with childlike satisfaction. 

Mrs. Ken way,” said Lord Arden, “ won’t you come and have some 
tea or something ? ” 

KoorMi rose. There was a little block just in front of them. A 
young actress, to whom Crichton had a moment before been intro¬ 
duced, was making play with her large bistre-shaded eyes, and trying 
to keep two or three admirers in tow at once. Koorali watched her 
with a wondering look, and Lord Arden watched Koorali. The actress 
was very pretty and taking, after her type, but it was a type which 
bewildered Koorali a little. She had gold-powdered hair meeting her 
brows, with big black eyes, and a melodramatic manner which she was 
exercising now on Crichton. 

“Mr. Kenway, here is Signor Charqui tragically imploring me to 
take him down, because he has to go home and write an opera, and his 
doctor says he will die unless he has plenty of stimulants. And here 
is Mr. Foxwell declaring that he also is dying to get me some jelly, 
and that the completion of his Academy picture is in question. What 
am I to do? Mr. Foxwell expiring for me, and Signor Charqui fur 
want of stimulants! I must leave them to die together,” and she put 
her hand within Crichton’s arm. 

Lord Arden and Koorali moved on. 

“It is a little perplexing for you,” said he, with a laugh, “to see 
people you only know across the footlights dressed like the rest of the 
world.” 

“ I suppose they are like the rest of the world,” said Koorali. 

“Anyhow, they mean you to think so,” he replied. “When you 
are introduced to the fair Aliss Mauleverer, Mrs. Ken way, you must 
avoid anything remotely professional. You must ask her if she was 
in the Park this morning, and if she went to Lady So-and-So’s party 
last night, though you know that according to physical laws she must 
have been at the Burlington Theatre.” 

As they came out of the supper-room, Kenway made his way to his 
wife. He had given Miss IMauleverer up to Mr. Gallup, the comedian, 
and those two, with the lady who hunted at matinees and the young 
man who was more realistic than Zola, formed a little knot at the 
bottom of the stairs. 

“The social status of the actor,” Mr. Gallup was saying—“the 
social status of the actor may be summed up in one word—Houp ! ” 
and he executed an acrobatic bound and a series of funny grimaces. 

“ Come along,” said Ken way, touching Koorali—she had got sepa¬ 
rated for a moment from Arden—“ wo will get away from all this 
infernal rot.” Then, seeing Lord Arden, he made an elaborate little 
speech about his wife’s delicate health and the bore of having to go 
to two or three places in an evening. 

“Good night,” said Arden. “I shall see you soon again, Mrs. 
Kenway, at Lady Betty Morse’s. She has promised to ask mo to 
meet you at another Sunday dinner.” , 


ICO 


“r/ziT RIGHT honourable: 


Kenway was })lcosecl that the bystanders should know that ho 
dined at the Morses’. He bade Arden good night with cordiality. 

“That man is a cad,” thought Arden to himself, as they moved off; 
“ and I shouldn’t think she liked it, poof little thing! ” 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE “l.AXGUOllOUS TROPIC FLOWER.” 

Crichton Kenway had passed through three several stages of feeling 
with regard to his wife’s position in London society. When they 
were on the w^ay to England, and for the first few days of their stay, 
he felt convinced that he was the happy possessor of a wife who was 
destined to become a star of the London season and of many seasons. 
After the party at Lady Betty’s, which was really their first appearance 
in what could be called society, he fell into a condition of profound 
disappointment. He was convinced that Koorali Avas a dead failure, a 
hopeless failure; and he was wroth with her and almost hated her. 
She became transfigured in his eyes. Her very face, her very figure, 
did not seem the same to him. Up to that time, in his Sultan-like 
fashion, he had been delighted to feast his eyes on the beauty of her 
i'ace and her form. Even when she annoyed him, he regarded her 
much in the light of a horse, a dog, a picture, some chattel which 
belonged to him, and might be either scolded, admired, or simply 
ignored as the mood took him. After that he began to wonder where 
he could have seen charm of feature, or figure, or movement in her. 
She was so shy, he thought; she looked so awkward ; she did not dress 
well; she did not wear her clothes well; smart dresses would not seem 
smart if put on by her. Then came the third stage. Kenway did not 
quite understand soiety in London; Lady Betty did. Lady Betty had 
said that Koorali would be a great success, and Lady Betty was light; 
for she knew her world and her people. She knew that the very 
novelty of Koor^li’s shy ways, her little bursts of a sort of intellectual 
aggressiveness, which was only shyness taking another form, her hall- 
dreamy poetic sympathies and fancies, which Lady Betty perceived 
from the outside though she did not understand them, her originality, 
her utter lack of affectation—Lady Betty had seen at once that 
peculiarities such as these, when combined Avith a graceful figure and 
a singularly pretty and picturesque face, Avould tell on London society. 
And in truth, they did tell. Before Koorali had been many Aveeks 
going about in society, there Avere found pretty languishing girls Avho 
tried to Avalk, and stand, and lean, and use their eyes, and move their 
hands after what they conceived to be the pattern of the young 
Australian married Avoman that all the Avorld Avas talking of. This 
AA'as KenAA^ay's third experience. He Avas not yet over his anger and 
disappointment at her social failure, Avhen he had to change his ideas 
?dl round once more, and to wonder and delight over her social success. 


THE ^^LANGUOROUS TROPIC FLOWEIV loi 

Yes; there was no mistake about it. The reality could not bo ignored 
merely because it was a pleasant and unexpected reality; he was the 
lawful owner of the successful beauty of the London season. 

Kenway was especially interested in observing the manner in which 
Sandham Morse took to Koorali. He was pleased to see how much 
Morse evidently liked her. Crichton Kenway was not a martyr to fits 
of jealousy. He had a placid faith in his wife. He did not believe 
she had one drop of passionate emotion in her; he felt sure that no 
temptation in the workl could induce her to do wrong. He did not 
particularly admire her for this; she wanted blood, he thought. She 
had not “ go ” enough in her to care for love-making and that sort of 
thing. In some ways it was very lucky for him that she was cast in 
such a mould ; at any rate, it relieved him from all apprehension. He 
could trust her where other men could not trust their wives; that is 
to say, he could make use of her where other men could not make use 
of their wives. 

It was clear to him that Morse was the rising man in English 
politics; and he meant to rise with Morse. It was clear to him that 
a time was coming, was close at hand, would come after the next 
general election, when the democratic party must get a chance; and 
with that time would come Morse, as Prime Minister, or, at the very 
least, as leader of the House of Commons, with some noble figure-head 
in the House of Lords to be set up for the nominal part of Premier. 
Then Kenway wanted to get some permanent appointment. His - 
recent London experiences made him now rather scorn the colonial 
governorship which had at first been the object of his desires. He had 
not the means to go into Parliament, although he had some ambition 
of that kind. He wanted a secure place, with so many thousands a 
year, and the admission into good society. He wanted to be certain 
of a handsome income; to live well; to have no more debts; to dine 
out every evening in the season at good houses; to make a round of 
visits at castles and country seats dining the recess; to know every 
one in society; to be consulted by every one; to be in the thick of 
everything, and to snub the Family and make them wild with envy. 
Now, all this could be assured to him by a permanent appointment in 
the Colonial Office, and this he intended that Morse should get for 
him. He began to think that Koorali might be of inestimable service 
to him, provided she did not indignantly revolt at this sort of intrigue; 
and he therefore saw with peculiar gratification that Morse seemed to 
like her more and more every day. Kenway never could talk to her 
much now; they had hardly anything in common. When she and 
Morse sat together they seemed never to want for subjects of conver¬ 
sation. Secretly, this incensed him, and at times he almost hated 
j^jorse—^not from jealousy, but from a sense of inferiority. Then he 
reflected that even a statesman, when he wishes to gain the favour of 
a pretty woman, must unbend and make her believe she is his intel¬ 
lectual equal. A husband’s position naturally releases him from the 
necessity for such affectations. 


102 


“7//£ RIGHT honourable: 


He was, of course, far too clever and too knowing to consent to 
figure in society merely as “beauty’s husband.” Such a position 
accepted by him would not serve his purpose at all. He meant to 
make a distinct mark upon society for himself; and he succeeded. He 
could do a great many things remarkably well, and he had the art of 
making the most of his accomplishments. He rode splendidly; he 
knew that when the autumn came on he would be able to show himself 
a good shot; he was almost a brilliant talker; he knew many countries 
well, and had a courier-life gift of polyglot conversation. He could 
give advice on almost any subject; and there was no question on 
which he could not come to a decision in a moment. Nothing im¬ 
presses the majority of men more than the capacity to give a judgment 
on the instant. Solomon himself, if he asked for time to consider a 
point, would not be half so impressive, so necessary to his friend, so 
comforting to mankind in general, as some one who gave a wrong 
opinion, but gave it at once, and with an air of decision. What if the 
opinion be wrong? Nobody cares after the thing is over; unless, 
I)erhaps, the one man who has acted upon the opinion, and he does not 
always remember whether he did act upon it or on some judgment or 
impulse of his own. The rest of the world forget all about the matter, 
and only remember that Crichton Kenway, by Jove, sir, is a man who 
can tell you off-hand exactly what you ought to do under any given cir¬ 
cumstances, by Jove! An uncommonly clever fellow, everybody said. 

Yes; Koorali was a social success. She came upon London society 
towards the close of a season when there was a sort of reaction 
against the professional beauty, and people had raved themselves into 
weariness over the favourite actress. Koorhli’s shrinking wild-flower 
looks and ways—or what Lady Betty called her wild-falcon ways— 
had a sudden attraction for all who just then were yearning for novelt}’’. 
Lady Betty had fallen straightway in love with her eyes, her figure, 
her style generally; and she had set various other great ladies also in 
admiration of them. A royal prince begged to be enabled to make 
acquaintance with the Australian visitor; and highly commended, not 
only her a})pearance, but her manners and her odd, pretty name. And 
then, KooiMi’s very mode of dressing, so unlike that of regulated and 
conventional social life, had its charm also. 

She first made a sensation at Mr. Whistler’s “ ten o’clock.” Lady 
Betty shepherded her assiduously, and took care that just the right 
word should be said about her to just the right people. It was one of 
Lady Betty’s little whims to take up occasionally and make the reputa¬ 
tion of some pretty, witty, or charming woman. She did not care for 
beauties who “ ran ” as such, and on patriotic grounds she disapproved 
of the craze for American loveliness. She had thought for some time 
that the colonials should have a chance, and had tried a little while 
ago to start the daughter of that great shearer of sheep. Sir Vesey 
riympton, and the wife of a possessor of many gold claims, who, how¬ 
ever, had been a dead failure. Lady Betty had submitted to a little 
good-natured chaff on the subject of her “ Australian with the nuggets,” 


THE ^^LANGUOROUS TROPIC FLOWERI 103 

who smelt of Ballarat, and whose startling Worth toilettes had occa¬ 
sioned as much talk as IMrs. Langtry’s famous costumes at the Prince’s 
d'heatre. Now’, Lady Betty w’as pleased to make it evident that an 
Australian woman coukl be charming and original without over¬ 
dressing, under-dressing, talking strange Antipodean slang, and aggres¬ 
sively suggesting nuggets. She laid some stress upou the fact of 
(Jriditon Kenway’s modest circumstances, while at the same time she 
alluded vaguely to his political prestige and his views upon the 
“annexation of New’ Guinea, and Lord Derby and federation—a sort 
of inodLl lor the Irish nationalists, don’t you know.” Lady Betty, in 
her pretty inconsequent w\ay, addressed a champion of llome Pule, 
who w’as too distinctly and nationally humorous to be excluded from a 
circle w’hich craves amusement, “With our dear princess’s husband at 
the Castle; as he is a German there could not be any ill feeling.” 
Lady Betty was quite taken with the idea, and presented the Home 
Ruler to Koonili forthwith. It is not quite certain, however, w’hether 
Crichton Ken way wmuld have relished her description of him, could he 
at the Universe Club have heard it given. Lady Betty caught the 
attention of the art clique first, as in duty bound to her entertainer; 
and after Mr. Whistler’s lecture, of which in truth our young bar¬ 
barian understood but little, Koorali found herself the centre of a group 
of striking and Mephistophelian figures, and in the novel position of 
a kind of lightning-conductor diverting the shalts of the leaders of 
rival schools, of w’hich one might be said to find “ Le beau dans 
rhorrible,” and of the other “ L’horrible dans le beau.” Koorali felt 
the whole thing a little bewildering. It w’as a very curious and repre¬ 
sentative gathering—rank, fashion, politics, art, literature, medicine, 
and the stage, hobnobbing joyfully. The house at which the party 
took place had got the name of Noah’s Ark, from the variety of species 
which were w’ont to congregate in it. No litter scene could have been 
chosen for Koorali’s first success. 

Lady Betty was interested on her own account as w’ell. She realized 
her ambition to make the acquaintance of Doctor Maria Lakeswell 
Tubbs, and Koor;\li was included in the arrangement wKich ensured 
the dangling of the skeleton before a select feminine company in Park 
Lane. Lady Betty began to meditate a physiological crusade, and the 
enlightenment of her own sex upon the dangers attending tight lacing. 
She did not alhwv the artists and the Home Ruler, however, to 
monopolize lier charge too loiig. Lady Betty knew how’ to manage 
thing'. A ducht ss, wdiose eldest son was talked of as the coming 
governor of a great Australian colon}'', w’as sweetly propitiated. Other 
great ladies were taken in hand in turn. Then an elderly peer, who 
W’as also a })oet, a stor\ -teller, and an admirer of beaut}'', asked for an 
introduction to Kooiali. He told her his latest good thing, laughing 
a fat chuckle at his ow’n wit. He asked lier three times where she 
lived, and the next day sent a card for an “at home.” After him 
came another literary man, an aged masher, with tiny shrivelled form, 
thin silvery hair, trembling hands and bleared blue eyes—but a pow’er 


104 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE. 


in his sphere, a critic whose verdict made or marred a book or a beauty. 
He was a living volume of scandalous chronicle, dating back to Byron 
in his prime; descending from the Guiccioli to luxuriant matrons 
present, at whom he glanced, shaking with impish merriment. “ They 
are so proper now,” he murmured, “ with their (laughters beside them! 
But the tales I could tell! ” 

And the tales be did tell! Horror! Koorali shrank like a wmunded 
fawn. She turned a pale indignant face, to meet Lord Arden’s eyes. 
He had dropped in late. He gave her his arm and took her down to 
supper. He felt like some knight protecting an innocent maiden. 

“ I know what Adrian Maybank’s conversation is to men,” he said; 
“ I can imagine what it might be to women. When he was younger, 
he became a sort of star in the drawing-rooms; and it was the fashion 
to smile behind fans at Mr. Maybank’s spicy anecdotes. I will tell 
you what a great w^oman, who is dead now, once said of him. It will 
show you that there are queens of womanhood who know how to defend 
their royalty.” 

There was a repressed enthusiasm about Lord Arden’s way of talking, 
even when he was inclined to be a little cynical, which made him seem 
an odd blending of knight-errantry and nineteenth-centuryism. 

“ This woman had been a singer. She was a genius. The blood 
of the tragedians flowed in her veins. She was a muse herself. I wish 
I could describe her to you. She was diamond-eyed; and when roused, 
she could break into flashing speech. I mean Adelaide Kemble; and 
I get Carlylesque when she is my subject. I saw her one evening a 
few years back—she was past her prime, but magnificent still—in 
a room full of people, clever and fashionable, when Adrian Maybank, 
his talent, his wit, his social charm were under discussion. She was 
silent, with her elbow resting upon a table, her chin upon her hand, 
her eyebrows bent ominously, till appealed to by her hostess. ‘ And 
you, Mrs. Sartoris, what is your opinion ? ’ I tell you, it was some¬ 
thing beautiful to see the dramatic gesture, the flame from those dark 
eyes, the Kemble head thrown back; to hear the clear, thrilling voice 
which spoke slowly and deliberately—‘ When Adrian Maybank enters 
a room in which I am, there is but one thing I would say, “ Women 
and boys, leave the court.” ’ That was all, Mrs. Kenway. She went 
back to her former attitude, but no one seemed very ready then to 
carry on the praise of Adrian Maybank.” 

The episode of this introduction did not end here. The next morn¬ 
ing Koorali received from Mr. Maybank a tiny presentation volume of 
})oems which celebrated, in language of old-fashioned free gallantry, 
the charms of various well-known ladies, to whose initials the poet 
had, for the stranger’s enlightenment, appended in his crabbed hand¬ 
writing the other letters of their names. Enclosed with the volume 
was a copy of sparkling vers de society, addressed to the fair Australian. 
They were the last Adrian Maybank ever wrote; for he died suddenly 
the following day. He had, however, distributed the little poem 
widely. 


THE LANGUOROUS TROPIC FLOWER! 105 

Thus was KoorMi made famous ; to Morse’s vague regret; to Lady 
Betty’s childlike satisfaction; to the envy of Mrs. Nevile-Beaucharap; 
and to the astonishment and alarm of the Family generally, who were 
convinced that such sudden notoriety could not be consistent with 
good morals. Some paragraph in a social weekly, and a few indis¬ 
criminate rumours penetrating the sacred circle, finally brought about 
a family conclave, in the course of which Lady Canteloupe gave out 
the resolution that it was desirable Mrs. Crichton should be snubbed; 
for Lady Canteloupe was one of those strictly proper ladies who hold 
the theory that virtue is a tender plant which can only flourish in the 
domestic forcing-house. Zenobia was not included in the family con¬ 
clave. She had quite made up her mind that she and Koorali were 
pledged to an offensive and defensive alliance against the Family. 

“Well!” she said abruptly to Koorali, when according to her 
announcement she came to luncheon, “ do you feel a little less cheap 
than when I saw you first—now that you are being turning into a 
professional beauty? You see, I was right. If I have the money, you 
have what is higher in the market.” 

Zenobia often came to call on Koorali. Crichton shuddered faintly 
at the sight of her carriage, which he used to notice standing at his 
door; and he always hoped, on these occasions, that none of his 
fashionable friends would call at the same time. It was a very mag¬ 
nificent turn-out, with as much gold plating and ornamental chain- 
work as could be attached to the harness. 

“ I wonder you don’t persuade your wife to drop that style of Lord 
Mayor’s coach,” Crichton said once to his brother Eustace. 

“ Ah! ” Eustace had a quiet irritating way of putting his eyeglass 
in his eye, and languidly answering a question or remark which an¬ 
noyed him. “It’s her mone}^ you know. I suppose she has a right 
to buy a Lord Mayor’s coach if she likes it.” 

Crichton said no more. He was clever enough to see that Eustace’s 
exaggerated tolerance of his wife’s eccentricities concealed a gall. It 
was very evident that Eustace had married without love, and was 
ashamed of having done so. 

Koorali did not, as Zenobia herself would have phrased it, “ tumble 
to ” her sister-in-law. She was oppressed by Zenobia’s exuberant 
vitality, by her frankness which seemed a want of delicacy, and by her 
slang and boyish * manners. There was almost nothing in common 
between them except a certain sincerity and love of truth, character¬ 
istic of both. KoorMi thought, at first, that Zenobia was vulgar. 
After a while, she began to feel that the over-dressing and apparent 
ostentation of wealth were not vulgarity, but were due to the fact that 
the poor little Sheffield heiress had had no experience of anything 
else. It all came as naturally to her as the dignity of simplicity comes 
to others. Then Koorkli saw that Zenobia was making discoveries, 
that she was not happy, and that she found it hard to adapt her crude, 
hoydenish, material views of life to the more complex condition of 
things which her marriage had brought about. There was something 
8 


io6 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


in her attitude which touched Koor^i. She seemed to be always 
observing and drawing conclusions. 

Zcnobia observed particularly KoorMi’s relations with her husband, 
and Ken way’s way of treating his wife. Crichton, though never abso¬ 
lutely rude or rough, had a rasping, overbearing manner at home, in 
marked contrast with his manners when abroad—a way of harking 
upon mean detail, of fault-finding, and of attributing the lowest motive 
to every action, which often caused Koor^li to wince, destroying her 
spontaneity and self-confidence, and making her timid and reserved, 
and less and less a thing of flesh and blood. 

Once, when Kenway had left the room, after some irritating dis¬ 
cussion on household affairs, Zenobia said, with a touch of bitterness— 

“ There ought to be a training-school for girls who mean to marry. 
They should tell us beforehand that we are going to become items— 
pieces of furniture. If one of us happens to be rich, she is rosewood, 
gilded ; that’s all the difference. I sometimes wish I were plain deal, 
and then, perhaps, Eustace might permit himself to storm at me.” 

“ Should you like to be stormed at, Zen ? ” asked Koorali listlessly. 

“No, dear, it would be b-beastly. But I should like it better than 
nagging or being let alone. Not that Eustace nags—he leaves that to 
Crichton. Ho is too polite. He only lets me alone. It’s a little 
crushing to find one’s lover asleep when one has been making tender 
speeches to him. Eustace went to sleep regularly in the train on our 
honeymoon. He tried to keep awake, but he couldn’t. He was too 
polite to begin readiug all at once; now he doesn’t make any b-bones 
about that. He buys French novels; and then I want to box his ears 
and say, d-a-m-n—so there! ” 

“ Oh! ” exclaimed Koorali suddenly, with a passion that surprised 
herself. “ To be let alone is just the one good thing in life one may 
not have.” 

At that moment Lance, the child, came running in with his hat in 
his hand. 

“Aunt Zen, Uncle Eustace is waiting in the carriage, and he says 
lie wants you.” 

“ Tell Uncle Eustace I’m not a spaniel,” said Zenobia; but she said 
good-bye to KoorMi and went. 

Zenobia sometimes met Lord Arden at Koorali’s house; and she 
threw herself with enthusiasm into his schemes of philanthropic 
reform. He was at this time much interested in a plan for providing 
homes and places of recreation for young workwomen. Zenobia lis¬ 
tened to him one day, and the next sent him a cheque for a large sum 
which she begged might be used at his discretion. Her impulsive 
generosity somewhat embarrassed Lord Arden, and also her eagerly 
expressed wish to have an active share in the work. Mrs. Eustace 
Kenway, in her French dresses, with her gorgeous carriage and pow¬ 
dered footmen, seemed incongruous among the workwomen. But he 
had taken a liking to the good-natured, spoilt child; and he, too, dis¬ 
cerned something of that pathetic element below the surface which 


THE ^^LANGUOROUS TROPIC FLOVVERP 107 

touched Koor^lk Zenobia was always less brusque, somehow, when 
he was present. It was at one of his benevolent entertainments that 
Zenobia first met Lady Betty Morse. She came to be known in Lady 
Betty’s set, as “ that dreadful sister-in-law of pretty Mrs. Crichton 
Kenway; ” which was a little hard on poor Zen, though it was but 
too natural th^it she should set Lady Betty’s teeth on edge. Lady 
Betty Wiis in some sort a revelation to Mrs. Eustace, who began to 
have faint glimmerings on the subjects of over-dressing and gold- 
plated harness. But the gbmmerings were very faint, and did not yet 
broaden to the Priory, for which Zenobia was just now buying the most 
magnificent modern furniture that Tottenham Court Road could produce. 

Koorali was herself one of the very last to find out her own success; 
and when she did at last find it out she was much amused, and went 
into the part as she might into an evening of private theatricals. She 
did not care in the least about the success, except that it amused her 
and helped her to escape from thinking of other things. Moreover, it 
oiled the wheels of domestic life; for Crichton was pleased, and appre¬ 
ciated her in proportion as she was made much of. 

A French diplomatist of rank, who sat next to her at dinner one 
day, paid her many compliments in his own tongue. Koorali was not 
listening very attentively, and perhaps had not that perfect mastery of 
the language which is apparently the natural possession of every heroine 
of fiction. She heard the diplomatist talking a great deal about a 
certain “ languorous tropic flower; ” and she thought he was giving 
her a descriptioii of some new discovery in botany. It was only when 
she compelled herself to pay a little more attention to his talk, that 
she found out that she was the languorous tropic flower, and that her 
neighbour was paying her an elaborate compliment. 

“ But you know,” she quietly said, in as good French as she could 
command, “ Australia is not in the tropics.” 

“Still, the place you come from, is all but tropical. Oh yes, I 
know,” he insisted. 

She told him its degree of latitude. The compliment withered 
under this mode of treatment, even as the tropical flower itself might 
have fared under a shower of sleet. The diplomatist afterwards gave 
out that Madame Kenway was witty, but a little, just a little malign, 
which did not harm Madame Kenway much in society. 

Koorali’s success, intensely gratifying to her husband, seemed to 
him his success, too. In fact it was so. They had three times more 
invitations t-* dinner than they could possibly accept; and Kenway 
positively insisted on their accepting all they could. Koorali did not 
mind much ; she was as willing to do one thing as another. Perhaps 
she would rather go out anywhere now, than remain at home a whole 
evening with her husband. Only two men had much interest for her 
in all the crowd she usai to meet. One was Lord Arden—and she 
frankly admitted to herself her interest in him; the other, of course, 
was Morse; and about him she did not admit herself to anything like 
self-examination—as yet. 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE” 


io8 


CHAPTER XIII. 

THE TERRACE. 

They met very often—Lady Betty’s charming patronage of Koorali 
and pretty way of “ making things nice for her,” brought this about 
most naturally—at Morse’s house. Koorali became quite a feature of 
the little luncheon parties for which Lady Betty was celebrated, and 
at which Lady Deveril gathered plentiful “ coi>y.” But apart from 
such occasions, she saw him frequently in her own home. Perhaps 
Lady Betty was hardly aware of the frequency of these visits, but had 
she been so, she would have thought nothing of it. It never occurred 
to Morse either to suppress the fact of his Riendship with KoorMi, or 
to make much of it. He had glided quite naturally into the intimacy, 
quite naturally into a habit of dropping in at Mrs. Kenway’s on his 
way to the Plouse in the afternoons, and of talking to her, at first 
vaguely, of his political opinions, his hopes and fears for England, all 
the “views” which Lady Betty had a fashh'n of dismissing as being 
merely picturesque and the proper thing for a Radical statesman. But 
Koorali took them seriously, and had a grave way of listening and of 
luoking at him as he talked, and of putting in every now and then a 
word or two of intelligent symjjathy that had a strangely soothing 
effect upon him. 

Exciting questions were coming up. The elections were talked of 
and the ctiances of war, which rumbled like thunder in the distance, 
or like the slow upheaving that heralds an earthquake. Jn the lull 
before the storm, the Government was affecting to busy itself with 
Australian affairs, a safe subject to handle; and the first reading of 
the Federation Bill, of which Morse had spoken to KoorMi, was to 
come on. The first note which she ever received from Morse was 
written from the House of Commons, and in reference to this debate. 
It gave her a curious thrill of pleasure. No one had ever before 
written to her from that place. It seemed to revive crude girlish 
dreams, when she had visions of being a power in unwritten Austra¬ 
lian history, and of swaying the councils of public men. She began 
to feel within her breast a rising up of her old s^elf, her real self, which 
her marriage had crushed. She seemed to know'"suddenly that she had 
resourees of intellect and emotion never yet brought out. It was an 
odd sort of fancy ; it frightened her a little. 

Morse’s note was short, scarcely telling her more than that he would 
speak the next evening. One little passage at its close, however, 
touched her, for it seemed to speak of weariness and dejection. 

“I am writing to you from one of the lobbies ‘upstairs,’ as our 
phrase is here. The debate going on below drags and' drones, an<l I 
would that I were a travelling tinker, and mieht wander away throuTh 
green fields and down by the river with the bulrushes, which somcl'OW 
I associate with Australia and vou.” 


THE TERRACE. 


109 

It had been at 6rst settled that Lady Betty should take Koorali to 
the House of Commons, but when the time came, it happened that the 
debate clashed with a grand fete at the Iiiventoiies—almost the last 
event of the season—a sort of Floral Fair, at which iloyalty had 
graciously consented to hold a stall, and at which Lady Butty Morse 
was to assist Koyalty, attended by the boy Lennie dressed in mediaeval 
page’s costume. All the professional beauties, and many beauties who 
were not professional, would as a matter of course be at the fete. Lady 
Betty insisted that Koorali must take her stand amongst them. 

Kenway was at first very much annoyed when after luncheon thal. 
day she declared her intention of going to the House of Commons 
instead. ! 5 he did not at the moment say that Morse was to speak. 
It was one of KoorMi’s faults perhaps, at any rate one of the reasons 
why she and Kenway did not “get on,” that she could never even in 
a trivial discussion meet him frankly with mind bared, as such a 
woman would naturally have done had she been sure of sympathetic 
comprehension. She had a nervous, almost physical dread of being 
misinterpretud, and shraidv from an abrupt word as a timid woman 
mi^ht shrink from an ex))ected blow. This attitude initatud Kenvvay 
inexpressibly; and Kooriili felt and owned to herself that he some¬ 
times hail reason on his side. 

“ What an infernal fool you are,” he said wrathfully. “You have 
opportunities made for you which don’t fall to the chance of one 
woman in a million, and you don’t know how to take advantage of 
them. Last night you wouldn’t go to the Coulmonts, because you had 
a headache, or some such rot, and my lord was as grutf as could be. 
You might remember that this season is a sort of speculation to me. 
Do you suppose that I should go in for it if I didn't mean to make 
money out of it? You might consider my interests.” 

“I don’t know how I should be serving your interests by going to 
the Inventories this evening,” said Koorali. “ I should certainly not 
make any money, and that is what we most need just now.” 

Crichton got up and stood with his back against the mantelpiece, the 
picture of angry discontent. 

“ I am glad you are beginning to realize that,” he said in his grating, 
cynical voice. “ As a rule, jmu take things as coolly as if you had 
been born a millionaire, instead of—what you were. The fact is, that 
unless my speculation succeeds, you will not be likely in future to see 
much of the people you may meet to-night. Every day we are getting 
deeper into debt. That would not matter much if I had any wny of 
raising money, but I have next to none now. I am sure to lose my 
appointment before long. In the Australian tele2rams to-day, the 
South Britain Ministry is described as shaky. What shall you do 
then? How should you like to go back to Australia, or to vegetate 
down at the Grey Manor?” 

Koorali got up from her seat too. 

“Crichton,” she said earnestly, “I have told you over and over 
again that I am willing, anxious, to live in a smaller house and give 




no 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


up the carriage and all that, or to go to the Grey Manor. You might 
have rooms near your office; I shouldn’t mind, I should like that. 
But while we are living in this way—so far beyond our means, and 
making no effort to retrench, the only thing is to try and forget the 
falseness and hollowness of it all. And so I take things coolly, as you 
say.” 

“ It would be more to the purpose if you helped me, by making 
yourself agreeable to Lord Couimont and people of influence. But you 
let men drop in the most tactless way—fellows who might be of ser¬ 
vice to me. You offend them, and do more harm than good.” 

“ You should rather say,” answered Koorali with sarcastic emphasis, 
“ that they offend me,” 

“ My dear, what woman was it, that boasted she had never lost a 
lover without turning him into a friend? I am afraid you haven’t 
learned that art. All men of the world make love to a pretty woman. 
You are old enough to take care of yourself. I don’t see how it can 
hurt you if Couimont, for instance, who will be at the Inventories to¬ 
night and on the look-out for you, should make you a few pretty 
speeches. The man is pleasant—and may be—useful.” 

Koorali said not a word. She moved to the writing-table. 

“ What are you doing ? ” asked Ken way. 

“ I am writing a note to Lady Betty Morse to say that I can’t be at 
her stall this evening.” 

Crichton strode forward. “ I must beg that you will change your 
mind,” he said, his tone suggesting intense anger bottled up. He 
paused suddenly, and added abruptly, “ Why are you so anxious to go 
to the House ? ” 

“ Because,” replied KoorMi, turning to him with clear eyes, “ Mr. 
^lorse is going to speak on the Federation Bill, and he has sent me a 
note to say that he has got a seat for me in the Ladies’ Gallery.” 

She saw the expression of her husband’s face change completely. At 
the same moment, a rush of crimson dyed her own cheeks, and some¬ 
thing seemed to catch her breath and almost to choke her—a swiftly 
darting thought, sensation, she hardly knew what it was. She turned 
away her eyes. The china figures on a bracket near were outlined 
with odd distinctness. It was as though she had never noticed them 
before. She could not look at Kenway with that consciousness between 
them. She could not go on with lier note. The words “ Dear Lady 
Betty,” which she had written, seemed to stand out like letters of fire. 

It was only for a few seconds. There came a quick revulsion. 
Self-wonderment and scorn, and the sense of loyalty to her friend 
thrust away the suggestion that stung her, and she seemed to be 
standing at arms, not in her own defence, but in defence of others. 
She hardly heard her husband’s words. 

“ You are quite right, KoorMi. You ought to go and hear Morse, 
especially as he wishes it, and it’s an Australian subject. I’ll square 
things with Couimont. He won’t think any the worse of you, or of me, 
because Sandham Morse values your opinion.” 


THE TERRACE 


III 


KoorMi uttered a little cry, almost of pain. 

“ Crichton! ” she exclaimed, and there was an imploring note in her 
voice, “you talk in a strange, hard way sometimes, as if you thought 
nothing mattered about me, or about anything, so long as we get 
money and are sought after by great people. But you don’t mean it ? 
You wouldn’t like me to be spoken lightly of, or—or to lose my own 
self-respect? You can’t like this hollowness and mockery, and the 
jarring there is between us whenever we talk about real things. Oh. 
Crichton! if you had only been more gentle with me—if you had only 
understood me better, we shouldn’t be such poor companions to each 
other now! ” 

“ I don’t find you a poor companion, Koorali,” said Crichton, hall 
amused, half touched. “You have improved very much since you 
have been going into society, and have learned how to dress and how to 
talk. You see now that South Britain isn’t the world, and that it’s 
the way of doing things which makes all the difierence. As for wish¬ 
ing you to be ‘ lightly spoken of,’ you must surely be aware that I am 
the last man to allow my name to be dragged in the mire.” 

KooiYli had stretched out her hands involuntary to him. She drew 
them back now, and let them fall by her sides. 

“ As for understanding you,” continued Ken way, with a little laugh, 
“ you seem to fancy yourself a sort of Chinese puzzle, that has to be 
taken to pieces and put together again. That’s not my idea of a 
woman or of marriage. If so, there is something decidedly rotten about 
the whole thing.” 

“ I quite agree with you, my dear Crichton,” said Kooriili, with some 
spirit, sitting down again and beginning to dash off her note. “ There 
is something decidedly rotten, as you express it, about the whole 
thing. I fancy that view would commend itself to most men and 
women who ever think at all about marriage in the abstract.” 

“ Come,” said Ken way, going up to her and putting his hand on her 
shoulder—^he did not notice that she winced ever so slightly under his 
touch—“ you need not get savage or go into a forty-eight hours’ sulk 
about nothing. Wish me luck at the bank, rather. I’m going to try 
and screw an advance out of the manager, and shall have to make up 
some cock-and-bull excuse for wanting it which won’t damage my 
credit. I think I had better lay it on you, and say we have been send¬ 
ing money out to Australia to your brother. They know he has been 
nearly cleaned out with the drought, and has had a row with Middle- 
mist. But no, that story won’t do; they might try arjd verify it.” 

The bank with which Crichton Kenway had dealings was the London 
branch of an Australian firm. The principal knew Kenway well enongh 
to grant him an overdraft now and then ; and hitherto, by .some lucky 
chance, things had always been put straight again. But these accom¬ 
modations and the friendly footing they were on entitled him, as it 
were, to ask free questions as to the uses to which the money was to 
he applied, and the ins and outs generally of Kenway’s private affairs, 
with a view of course to the security of the loan. It was a little diffi- 


^^THh KlGHl HONOURABLE.^ 


I 12 

cult always to wriggle safely out of these inquiries; but Kenway’s 
speciousness served him on such occasions in good stead. He had the 
rare knack of making out a good case, and of inspiring confidence in 
his integrity, which had tided him over many a serious crisis. But this 
was a much more serious crisis than any he had yet had to encounter. 

“I shall ask Bonhote to dinner,” continued Kenway, taking out his 
engagement book and looking over it. Bonhote was the manager of 
the Bank. “ I see we are free on Sunday. One can get so much more 
out of a man over a bottle of Leoville. Kemember, if he comes, that 
you don’t say the wrong thing. You have an unhappy knack of doing 
that, dear, when a little finesse is required.” 

“ Oh, do not let us tell lies,” cried Koorali. “ I can’t bear it. Some¬ 
times, when I hear you making up a plausible tale, I shudder. You 
would lie even to me, if it served your purpose.” 

“ I wish you wouldn’t take things like that,” returned Kenway, a 
little discomposed. “ I am only doing my best for you as well as for 
myself. We are in a hole, and we must get out of it. If I can’t per¬ 
suade the bank to give me an'other leg-up, I must go to the Jews. 
Well, good-bye. Go to the House. You’ll take the carriage. And 
get Morse to give you some coffee. Go with him for a walk on the 
terrace, and make the running with him—in politics, my dear—as for 
flirtation, I suppose you are both above that—but keep an eye to 
my interests, and don’t shirk being introduced to any fellows worth 
knowing.” 

He was leaving the room. At the door Koorali’s voice stopped him. 

“ Crichton.” 

“Well?” 

“Will you go with me this evening?” 

“ 'I'o the House? No. Why should I? Morse will look after you. 
1 don’t care a straw about federation, though, of course, I mustn’t let 
people think so. And then I want to make it all right with Coulmont. 
It won’t do for a Cabinet Minister to fancy you mean to drop him, be¬ 
cause he has been foolish enough to admire you.” 

Kenway laughed again that rasping laugh, which grated so on his 
wife’s nerves. He did not give her time to make any remonstrance, 
but left the room; and presently she heard the hall door closing with 
a bang behind him. 

Koorali did not at this time know much about the House of Com¬ 
mons; but she expected somehow that Morse would be waiting to 
receive her, and that he would put everything right for her. She 
drove to the door of the Ladies’ Gallery in the inner courtyard, and 
there she did find Morse waiting. He was a little surprised at seeing 
her alone ; but he did not say anything of that to her. She evidently 
had not thought about the matter, or did not know that ladies do not 
usually come alone to the House of Commons. He could get Lady 
Betty to give her a hint some time, he said to himself; and it really 
did not matter much in any case. So he took Koorali to her place in 
the gallery, and in due course of time there came on the motion for tho 


THE TERRACE. 113 

(iebite on the second reading of the Australian Federation Bill, and 
Morse made his speech. It was not a long speech ; it did not oppose 
the measure; it merely warned the young colonies against the respon¬ 
sibilities, political and moral, of a close fellowship and partnership with 
the old empire. Tiiere was a democratic and almost a republican 
dash about the speech which delighted the little republican from South 
Britain. Koorali felt her old enthusiasm revive. Morsels voice was 
strong, sweet, and penetrating, with a metallic ring in its scornful 
tone. It thrilled her as no other voice had ever done. Koorali recalled 
afterwards to her memory, with a certain shamefacediiess, that she 
found herself trembling with excitement when Morse began to speak. 

After his speech, he came to the gallery for Koorali, and brought 
her downstairs. He had asked her to come and see the library; but 
she refused. She had not many minutes left, she said; she wished to 
get home before it became late. 

Now, when the excitement was over, she felt shy and strange. She 
had a painful consciousness of some hidden meaning in Crichton’s 
words that afternoon, a meaning she might have discovered readily 
enough had Lord Coulinont or any other man been in question, but 
whicti she could not, would not, apply to Morse. 

She declined his offer of coffee; and she shrank from introductions 
to any of his friends. She grew hot as she remembered the change in 
her husband’s manner, and his reference to influential peoph^; hot tu 
think that he had recommended her to “ make the running,” even in 
politics, with Morse. When Morse begged her at least to take one 
turn on the terrace, she hesitated and looked troubled. 

“Mrs. Kenway,” he said, “why are you in such a hurry to leave 
us? You are not going anywhere this evening,- 1 know; and your 
husband is at the Inventories enjoying the Royalties—as much perhaps 
as Lady Betty,” he added with a little laugh. 

“ Lady Betty-” Koorali began, and stopped awkwardly. The 

thought struck her suddenly, how strange it was, that while the hus¬ 
band was almost denouncing monarchy in the House of Commons, the 
wife should be in devoted attendance upon its future representatives. 
It seemed to tell of a divergence of aims and interests; it seemed an 
iucongruit}’. It was sad, she thought, and it deepened in her mind 
the impression—always there, though sometimes argued against as 
foolish—of Morse’s loneliness. Lady Betty enjoys everything,” she 
added; but the words were obviously not those she had been on the 
point of uttering. 

“ And you too ? ” he said. “ Yes, I think you do. Do you know 
that, in spite of the wear and tear of fashionable life, you loi.k 
.strot)ger and brighter now than you did when I first saw you in 
England—at my own house?” 

“ Yes,” she answered simply, “I am happier now.” 

To him there was something infinitely })athetic in her reply. She 
was too truthful to hide from him that she had not been happy, that 
she was not now quite happy. It touched him strangely that she 




^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


114 

should not make any flimsy pretence to him. Her sincerity was in 
harmony with the nature of their relationship to each other. It was 
an unconscious tribute—not to his vanity, for he was not vain—but to 
his manliness. And yet she had never knowingly given him the least 
insight into her married life. Koorali was so loyal, that not even to 
her closest friend would she utter one word in disparagement of her 
husband. Morse had heard her, under stress of social necessity, put 
on the conventional wifely air, say pretty things implying accord 
between herself and her husband, and respond outwardly to Crichton’s 
“devoted” manner. All the time he had known it was acting, and 
had felt intuitively that she knew he saw through such sad, wifely, 
pious hypocrisy. He had always an impulse to protect her in some 
fashion, as though she were a child not understood by its parents, and 
bewildered at being forced into an attitude foreign to its nature. He 
wanted to take the little thing’s hand, as it were, and lead her away, and 
let her be her own sweet, truthful self. He felt thus at this moment. 
Ho could not hold his voice in restraint, though his words were calm. 

“ No, it doesn’t satisfy you,” he said. “ You don’t care for the sort 
of thing people call ‘getting on in society- 

“Oh,” she interrupted impulsively, “the falseness, the seeming t" 
be what we are not—that is what I cannot bear.” Then, as if regret¬ 
ting her outburst, she faltered, “ I—I mean, Mr. Morse, that we are 
not like you and i>ady Betty—it suits you; it is your right place, but 
with us—it all seems a mistake somehow.” 

He looked down upon her. They were on the terrace now. There 
was no moon, but streams of amber light poured out from the windows 
of the library. The river, hemmed in there by the Westminster and 
Lambeth Bridges, looked like a narrow lake edged by brilliant points 
of fire. These, reflected in the water, gave curious straight bars of 
light, alternating with broad and dark lines, crossed here and there by 
the black outline of some heavy barge. A solitary lamp upon the low 
mast sent out its reflection like a lengthened flambeau till the shining 
trail was lost in the leaden stillness of the central stream. Further 
back, on the south side, all seemed dusky in contrast, the great block 
(tf St. Thomas’s Hospital looked an ill-defined mass dotted with rush- 
ligi.ts, and the grey keep of Lambeth Palace showed solemnly among the 
shadows when a ripple on the water put out the reflected lights in the 
river and allowed the objects on the shore a better chance of being seen. 

“ Y^ou have no need to seem anything but what you are,” he said 
very gravely; “ for no one who knows you could misunderstand you. 
But you are right, Mrs. Kenway; it doesn’t suit you—this merry-go- 
round sort of existence. I often think, when I watch you at parties 
and places, that though you are talking and smiling, and quite in the 
world, you don’t really belong to it; and that you would be better 
pleased to be with your children, and”—he paused for a moment, 
and his voice deeptned ever so slightly—“with your—I mean in your 
own home. 

She laughed a little jarringly, and her voice trembled too. “ I don’t 



THE TERRACE. 115 

know, Mr. Morse. You mustn’t think that I am so domestic as that. 
I don’t think I like sta3ung at home very much.” 

Ihere was a silence which lasted several paces till they turned again 
in their walk. Morse had mechanically returned the salutation of a 
passing member, and exchanged a word or two about his speech that 
evening. The member glanced at Koorali and raised his hat. He 
seemed to wish to prolong the conversation so that an introduction 
might be efiected; but Morse moved on. 

“I know what you were thinking a minute or twm ago,” he said 
abruptly. “ It struck you that Lady Betty w'ould not have approved 
of my speech to-night.” 

“Lady Betty does not think that you are in earnest,” Koorali 
answered. 

“ But you know that I am very much in earnest,” he said gravely. 

There was a little silence. 

“I wish your -words could pierce to the very heart of all our 
colonies,” Koorali said with emotion. This was her first direct com¬ 
ment on his speech. 

“ You liked what I said?” he asked her quite seriously and gravely, 
as if he were talking with a man. 

“ Oh yes. 1 felt every word of it; I agreed in every word. That 
is our danger; I have long thought it. We shall become corrupted 
with this false glory of war. We shall think we are sharers of 
England’s strength and fame when we are only becoming conspirators 
against justice and mercy. But is it not hard for you to be so im¬ 
partial, being an Englishman ? ” 

She spoke brightly and without shyness. It was a relief and yet 
a half-admitted disappointment that they had gone off the more 
])ersonal ground. To discuss any general subject with Morse was 
always a great pleasure to her; for even the shortest conversation 
seemed to reveal new meeting-points, new harmonies. But to know 
that he took a deep individual interest in her gave her a curious thrill, 
half of pain, half of delight. She did not analyze the feeling. She 
shrank from acknowledging it, but she was conscious of it all the 
same. She was glad when their intercourse was of a bright happy 
kind, and this was often; for then it was a companionship of mind and 
temperament such as she had never known before in her life. 

“ They tell me I am anti-English—the papers do,” Morse said, with 
a smile. “ My own fear is that I am rather too much inclined to make 
an idol of England. I want her to do right.” 

“ Some day you will speak with the voice of England,” Koorali said, 
her own voice swelling with enthusiasm. “ x wonder if I shall be here 
then; or if we shall have gone back to South Britain, and I shall only 
read in the papers of all that is going on in England ? ell, I shall 
read with all the more interest because of what I have seen and heard 
to-night. I shall not forget this.” 

“ 1 hope you will be here,” Morse said, “ whatever happens to the 
j)(I tical fortunes of us and our parties.” 


ii6 


‘^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^. 


“Yes; I should like to stay in England for a little yet, and see 
what happens.” Then she almost caught up her own words, and 
hurriedly said, “ It is very kind of you, JNIr. Morse, to take so much 
trouble; and I am delighted; and I shall always remember the debate 
and your speech; and 1 think I must go now.” 

“ Yes; 1 suppose you must go,” Morse said. “ I am so glad we 
agree on these questions, Mrs. Kenway, and I hope we shall meet again 
before long. You will allow me to come and see you again some day 
soon ? ” 

“Oh yes,” she answered impulsively; “the sooner the better.” 

She turned her soft dark eyes with a look of almost childlike con¬ 
fidence up to him—she did seem very childlike in face, form, and 
expression even still—and then he conducted her through stony courts 
and draughty passages to her carriage, and she drove away. 


CHAP^rER XIV. 

“shall I GO TO SEE HER?” 

It must not be supposed that Koorali, on discovering herself to be 
uncongenially mated, had sunk at once into the attitude of femme 
incompri>e. A bright imaginative girl, accustomed to supremacy, with 
ideals and aspirations fed by a couive of romantic reading, but with no 
practical knowledge of life or human nature, even of the most limited 
kind, she had married under stress of girlish sorrow and disajtpoint- 
ment, just as a child whom its guardians had deserted might trustingly 
put its hand into that of some kindly speaking stranger who had 
ollered to take it home. Koorali had never seriously reflected that she 
might be making a grave mistake, kihe was a very ignorant and a 
very pure-minded giil, and she did not think much about the obliga¬ 
tions of marriage, or of marriage itself, except as being, she supposed, 
the ultimate destiny of all women. 

Crichton Kenway, good-looking and well-mannered, wiih a certain 
political repute, an assured position that seemed to offer a prop in her 
loneliness, and an unlimited self-confidence which impressed Koorali 
with a sense of security, attracted her fancy, as was natural enough; 
and he, being very much in love with the Premier’s pretty daugliTer, 
and making a frank display of apparently good-humoured if somewhat 
unheroic devotion, would have saiistied a girl less ignorant than Koorali 
and wdth not so strong a craving for syinpathy and affection. 

They were engaged only for a month or two. iShe had very little 
time for self-analysis. Occasionally she felt a fiiint qualm of doubt as 
to whether this were the all-absorbing love, the perfect kinship of 
heart, soul, and y-pirit, of which in poetic moments she had dreamed ; 
but when she spoke of this to Crichton, he always soothed her with 
the hackneyed assurance that love in its fullest sense is to a w’oinan 
an impossibility before marriage. Even at that time Koorali had 


SHALL I GO TO SEE HERf^^ 117 

glinimerin^^s of the fact that there was not a great deal of soul in 
Crichton Kenway. It was not, however, till after she had married 
him, and hourly familiarity had rubbed away all illusions, that indeed 
she found out how little he possessed, how shifty was his standard of 
the ^ right, or even of the becoming, how self-interested were his 
motives, how material his views of life. Underneath Kenway’s veneer 
of refinement there was, in fact, a certain grossness, all the more 
repelling to a sensitive, sincere woman, because in ordinary intercourse 
he did not allow it to become apparent. He was not vicious, but he 
was innately coarse. All delicacy of manner and expression, all pretty 
euphemisms, all poetic veils, he considered as so much of the em¬ 
broidery of social relationship, so many afiecfations, very nice in their 
way,^ and necessary to the probationary condition; but after the 
marriage ceremony, sui^erfluous and a sign of weakness in sensible 
pet sons. 

Crichton roughly plucked his flower, and was surprised and angry 
that it withered. Or, to use another metaphor, the girl, all tender 
P.nd sensitive, full of capacities which he might have developed and 
])assionate instincts that he might have turned in whatever direction 
he pleased, was like a stream frozen at its source. 

At first Koorkli was almost too bewildered to realize the position 
completely. She only knew that marriage shocked and oppressed her. 
She struggled against the feeling, and fancied that it must come from 
something unnatural in her own temperament; and she fought very 
bravely against the nervous horror, the craving to be alone, to belong 
once more to herself, which made life terrible to her. Often at nights 
she would lie awake and cry silently, and wonder why she cried—for 
she could not at fir.»t bring herself to admit that her husband’s com¬ 
panionship was repugnant to her; she only said to herself that she 
disliked marriage. 

She sufiered in health, she grew pale, and was inclined to be 
hysterical. This annoyed Crichton. He lost his temper. He was 
able to swear without raising his voice, and to say crude, hard things 
in a way that hurt like a blow. He frightened her; she was not strong 
j)hysically. She felt sometimes like a slave who is full of passionate 
rebellion and dares not strike. She could not swear. She could only 
keep cold silence, or, as a woman does, say bitter words. Then began 
the yvarring over petty matters which is the curse of ill-assorted 
unions, which is weariness to body and spirit. KoorMi was ignorant. 
She had never been taught housekeeping. She knew almost nothing 
of the intricacies of table-serving and such-like matters. Her own 
people yvere not what is called “ particular.” Mr. Middh-mist did not 
much concern himself that his claret should be at exactly the right 
temperature, or that 'pdte de foie gras, Bombay ducks, and such 
foreign additions to a purely Australian bill of fare should be provided 
f(.r him. Crichton Kenway did greatly care about these and other 
things; and in his estimation, Koorali, as a wife, fell short in a 
thousand ways. She did not understand that in an English establish- 


ii8 ^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 

nicnt things were ordered thus, and thus only, and that to trnnsgrcss 
the gastronomic code was crime far more heinous than to tell a lie or 
to commit a mean action. Her pride revolted against Ken way 
sarcjisms, which seemed intended to remind her of the inferiority of 
her origin. When she had brought herself into a condition of quiet 
endurance, or even contempt, which is in some sort a satisfaction, the 
sense of contest was boring. She felt this fashion of intercourse to he 
slow starvation of heart and spirit. She learned to please him as a 
housekeeper, but this did not much mend matters. Kenway in 
a state of serene content after a dinner which he had enjoyed was to 
KoorMi no more of a companion than Kenway in a state of wrath. 
He was one of the husbands who, conscious of having but a limited 
stock of interest in intellectual subjects, economically keeps whatever 
store of knowledge he may possess for use outside his domestic circle. 
He did not like to see his wife read. He liked her to be at his beck 
and call. He did not care to talk about books, or even about politics, 
except from the personal point of view. A national question was of 
no vital interest to him in itself, though in the legislative chamber or 
at a Government House dinner-party he could enlarge very glibly on 
the glory and honour of South Britain. He could always be intensely 
patriotic when that was to his own adv'antage. But a question as to 
the possibility of serving himself by means of “ back-stairs ” influence 
he felt to be of real importance, and Koorali’s first thrill of repugnance, 
first bewildered realization of the gulf between them, was caused by her 
husband’s revelation of himself under this aspect. 

Koorali’s short married life had been a succession of painful shocks 
and struggles—vain efforts to reconcile the inward with the outward, the 
ideal and the real, ending at last in a sort of dazed acquiescence. She 
had been ill for a long time after the birth of her second boy, and bod}'- 
and mind reacted upon one another. She got into a way of taking life 
as it came, and of not reasoning about it. She began to believe that 
she was really stupid and wanting in common sense, as Crichton so often 
told her, and that he had reasonable cause for complaint. She had 
almost lost her girlish enthusiasm, her girlish capacity for enjoyment. 
It often seemed to her that the “ Little Queen,” the romantic child 
who had had such firm faith in nobilitj’-, goodness, and happiness, had 
died before her own wedding day. It was all a mistake. Life was 
cold and colourless. Purity of motive, high aims, love—except the 
love bitwecn mother and child—were all illusions. There were no 
thrilling emotions, save such as thiillcd with pain; and tint pain so 
unheroic, having its springs in what was so poor and mean and petty.! 

Thus things were, when Kenway, alter a short ])eriod of comparative 
impecuniosity and of fighting on the Opposition benches, received the 
appointment of Agent-General. Middlemist’s party came into power, 
and Middlemist was able to gratify his son-in-law’s ambition to visit 
England, at the expense of South Britain. But Middlemist was 
tottering, and Kenway knew, when he accepted the Agent-Generalship, 
that his own tenure of office might be a short one. Any telegraphic 


SHALL I GO TO SEE HERf^^ 


119 

despatch mioht contain the news of his downfalJ. He knew already 
who would be his successor. In that case, failing Morse’s patronage 
and the lucrative English appointment on which hie now depended, it 
was open to him to drag on existence in London or the country as best 
he might on the small income arising from Australian investments that 
he could not realize, as he would have liked to do, or to go back again 
to South Britain, and once more force himself into place. He had 
calculated risks, and w'as prepared to play a bold game. 

So they had “come home,” as the saying is. Only such an entire 
change of scene and of the circumstances of her life as this was could 
have aroused KoorMi from the numbed condition into which she had 
fallen. And the springs had begun to move. She who had fancied 
that everything was over for her found that her real nature was only 
coming into play. 

Koorali watched with the closest attention all that she saw passing 
around her. The England which she was looking on was so like, and 
so unlike, the England of her dreams, that she hardly knew whether 
she was jleased or disappointed. In some ways it w'as disappointing. 
It seemed to her like a tapestry of which the colours had hided. There 
was a want of freshness. The society she mingled with appeared to 
be gracefully outworn. There was a lack of energy, of interest, of 
sympathy. She felt at first not merely that she was alone in the 
midst of it, but that every one else seemed alone also. She grew to 
like Lady Betty. She felt tenderly grateful to her; but she could not 
open her heart, she thought, to Lady Betty. It appeared to her some¬ 
how that if she had anything to say which was long in the telling. 
Lady Betty would not be able quite to keep up her interest in it. 
Lady Betty was evidently of a sympathetic nature, but the sympathy 
had nothing very particular in it; she was able to put herself at 
once into general sympathy with every one; but it did not get much 
deeper with one than with another. 

Of the men of her circle Koorali liked Lord Arden perhaps best. 
She felt already as if she had known him for years. He evidently 
liked her too, and came to see her whenever he pleased. 

Morse she did not class quite with other men. He seemed to belong 
to her old life—to her dreamy girlhood. In regard to him, it ivas not 
a mere question of liking; the sense of companionship with him was 
too strong. She felt for him the w'armest admiration. He had not 
disappointed her. He was exactly what she would have wished him 
to be. He was strong, he was brave, he was independent, lie had 
evidently a heart full of generous human feeling. He seemed to 
Koorali's enthusiasm a man to lead a state ; to lead a nation. She 
admired his complete self-possession ; his undisturbed calmness. The 
old Napoleonic idea about him came back to her mind now and then ; 
but she did not now think him like Napoleon. He seemed far too 
unselfish; too much of a patriot. She was in truth quite ready to 
make a hero of Morse; all the more so as his sweet composed manner 
toivards herself, always friendly and sympathetic, was never demonstra- 


120 


“ 77 /^ RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


tivo, and thougli occasionally he showed her that he in his turn con¬ 
sidered her as removed from the crowd, he left her free to think anything 
she liked about him. She might have been afraid to allow herself to 
idealize other men ; but for Morse it did not matter. She would not 
let herself think it mattered. He seemed to stand high above women, 
and apart from them somehow—such at least were Koorali’s ideas— 
it was nothing more than a sort of duty that a woman should look 
up to him with admiration. She understood him so well, she thought. 
He liked her; that was clear. It was a sort of tacit understanding 
between them that she was to him a link with the past—a past of 
unfulfilled dreams, perhaps, like her owm ; and she was gratified by 
the knowledge. She had been so long misprized in a certain sense, 
that it was the lifting up of her self-respect again out of the worldly 
mire when u man like Sandham Morse showed that he felt respect for 
her. 

On the whole Kooikli was now almost happy. She enjoyed the 
pageant, even when it sometimes disap|)ointed her; though she was 
galled now and then by the sense of a false position, and this most 
w'hen in Crichton’s company. It w'as, nevertheless, delightful to her 
to mix with all these bright clever men and women, and to be accepted 
as an equal, even regarded as a favourite among them. She had not 
been so happy before since her marriage. Her husband and she were 
getting on much better now than had been their w^ay for long before. 
He left her more alone, though, while she w^as unaw'are of it, he 
w^atched her closely. He felt that he had struck a wrong chord in 
their conversation upon the day of the Federation debate; and for the 
present threw out no more insinuations in regard to Lord Coulmont or 
other influential admirers. He saw that he had shocked her. This 
would under ordinary circumstances have given him no uneasiness ; 
but he was careful not to do so further, lest his plans about Morse 
might receive a check. So things were going smoothly on the whole ; 
and he was less irritable. His debts did not press so heavily upon 
him. The bank had refused to advance the sum he required, and he 
had been obliged to have recourse to a money-lender. He had tried 
to get a loan out of Eustace, w’ho had remained languidly impervious 
to hints. Zenobia, however, having got an inkling of his embarrass¬ 
ment, sent him in the prettiest manner a cheque for several hundreds. 
Zenobia said not a word of this to Koorali, or any one else, nor did 
Crichton. His manner to his sister-in-law changed very much. He 
treated her to a style of exuberant friendliness; but the little trans¬ 
action made no diflerence in the contempt he expressed for her when 
his remarks were not likely to reach her ears. 

Koorali thought he was greatly improving ; she even began to ask 
herself generously whether she had not been most in fault all through. 
Yes; she was almost happy. 

Morse’s feelings towards Koorali were curiously compounded. Her 
intuition concerning them vvas a true one. They were perfumed by 
a memory of youth ; they had in them the recollection of the “ divine 


SHALL 1 GO TO SEE HERf 


121 


feelings that die in youth’s brief morn,” as Shelley says, Kocrhli’s was 
a liviug form from a bright time when life was still in its opening for 
him. Besides this he admired her much. He was in a strange, 
half-unconscious way in sympathy with her; he was pleased with her 
frank outspoken confidence in him and admiration for him; and he 
knew well that she was not happy. Morse was a man of the world, 
and w^ould have understood, of course, if he had put the question to 
himself, that it w'ould not do for him to admire this beautiful young 
Australian woman too much, or to be with lier excciit in the most 
ordinary and commonplace sort of way. But he had not the least 
inclination to pay her any marked attention of the kind that society 
comments upon. He was sincerely anxious to make her time in 
London as pleasant as possible for her, and he was glad for her sake to 
court the companionship of her husband. He ha 1 a strong idea that 
they did not get on very well together, and it seemed to him that a 
woman’s respect for her husband is often increased by the respect 
which others show to him. So Morse was very attentive to Crichton 
Ken way, whom all the while he did not greatly like. But Kenway 
had^impressed him with a sense of capacity and fitness, and Morse 
often thought that if ever he got a chance of making such an appoint¬ 
ment, Kenway w'ould be a remarkably good man for some permanent 
place in connection with the colonies. 

Is a prudent, well-meaning man, who is no longer young, bound to 
avoid the company of a married woman the moment he begins to feel 
any special interest in her, the moment that she seems to take an 
especial interest in him ? Can there be no friendship between a woman 
and a man ? Is it all the “ fire and tow” principle in which Crichton 
Ken way faithfully believed? Morse certainly was not a man to 
believe naturally in this ignoble doctrine. He had no feeling towards 
Koorkli, as yet, which might not have been laid bare to Lady Betty, 
and have had Lady Betty’s cordial approval and sympathy. Still, 
after the evening on the terrace, he had some little doubt now and 
then as to whether he ought to go and see Koorali at her house so 
frequently, even when sometimes Lady Betty suggested the visit. 
But the chief reason for his doubt was not because he was afraid of 
falling in love with KoorMi, or of her falling in love with him. 
About this latter possibility he never thought at all; only he asked 
himself whether it would be well to get into a habit of calling on 
Koorali and to encourage his interest in her, seeing that she might 
go back to the colonies again, and then he should miss her, and should 
have put on himself a needless pain. Of course, if her husband could 
get a permanent appointment, he and she would stay in London. 
But, then, would it well to admit that idea into his mind ? Would 
it be well to allow himself to think that a permanent place for Mrs. 
Kenway’s husband w'ould keep Mrs. Kenw’ay in London, and enable 
him to call and have a talk with her every now and then? 

“ Shall I go to see her ; shall I not go ? ” Morse was one day asking 
of himself. Why should he not go ? he thought; was it not almost an 
9 


122 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


offence to her even to hesitate, to raise any question on the subject ? 
She was a dear friend; why allow such profanation to thn sincerity 
and sacredness of their friendship as was implied even in the momt n- 
tary douht whether he would not do better by keeping away from her ? 
And yet; and yet- 

While he was thinking, something oddly decided for him. Lady 
Betty brought a young and enthusiastic girl of eighteen, a friend of 
hers, just come out, to see Morse. Morse had not met her before since 
she was a child. He had grown to be a great man in her estimation, 
and was indeed her especial political hero. When they had talked for 
some time, and she was going, he held out his hand, Jind the pretty 
young enthusiast suddenly cxcl.iimed, “Oh, Lady Betty—please—may 
I kiss him ? ” 

“My d(ar child, ki.ss him hy all means,” Lady Bettv replied, much 
amused and delighted. So the girl kissed him, blushing crimson at 
her own audacious irnpu'se. 

Now, what had this pleasant little incident to do with Koorali? 
Just this much. “Come,” Morse snid to himself, “that settles it. I 
am no longer anything but an elderly man. He whom ])retty girls 
oiler to kiss is beyond the time of scandal. I am growing old. 
Nothing could make this more clear to my mind than that volunteer 
kiss. 1 may go and see any woman; it does not matter now.” 


CHAPTER XV. 

KENW’AY ACTS THE HERO. 

One morning, a few days before Goodwood, Crichton Kenway came 
into his wife’s room while she was dressing. She had risen rather late 
after a ball. He Avas pale Avith anuer and anxiety. He held a news¬ 
paper in his hand, and Avithout preface or comment, except a Ioav 
muttered oath, read aloud a telegram from Australia. It was to the 
effect that the legislative chamber of South Britain had passed a 
vote of want of confidence in the Middlemist Government, that Mr. 
Middlemist had resigned, and that Sir James Burgess, chief of the 
Opposition ai.d of the anti-squatting party, had formed a ^linistry. 

Crichton’s calmness did not last long. Koorali had presently to 
lis'en to a Ioav torrent of irrational abuse directed a 'ainst her ather, 
Avho “might haA-e held on a little Lnger;” against Australian corrupt 
practices, against corrupt English practices, against democracy abroad 
and conservatism at home, ajjainst the tardy elections, jingoism. Morse. 

Koorali’s face Avhitened. It has been said that Crichton Kenway 
could swear so as to hit hard Avithout lifting his voice. 

“What has Mr. Morse to do with itV” she asked, her spirit rising. 

“Just this, as you knoAv very Avell, only it suits you to ])lay the 
‘defile me not’ part. He has promised me an appointment if he 
comes into power; and my future—and yours—depends upon how he 



KENIVAY ACTS THE HERO. 


123 

swims with the tide—upon whether he becomes Prime Minister or 
not.” 

“ He will not swim with the tide,” Koor^li answered, her eyes 
giving: out a proud little flash. “ He will breast it.” 

“You think so?” exclaimed Crichton in a dififerent tone. “He 
talks to you of his prospects—of what is going on behind the scenes. 
I know that he often writes to you from the House. You can give a 
guess as to his chances of coming in? He believes himself safe, then?” 

Koorali looked at her husband with the faintest expression of con¬ 
tempt on her face. It was mingled with vague alarm. 

“ I don’t understand you, Crichton. It pains me to hear you speak 
in that way, for you cannot really mean it. I am very sorry that you 
are so distressed and angry. I know that it is a serious matter for us; 
but for a long time we have had to face the thought of it; we knew 
that it was coming.” 

“ It has come at a confoundedly inconvenient time,” returned Ken¬ 
way. “ Three months hence it would have mattered less. How are 
we to carry on now ? I can tell you that your London life has come 
to an end.” 

“We might live at the Grey Manor,” said Koorali. “ It could not 
cost so much there, and we have still our own money—from Australia,” 

“Which will go a long way—in paying interest to the Jews—in 
keeping up a staff of servants, hunters, and all that. You don’t sup¬ 
pose that I am going to live like a beggarly parson, within two miles 
of my younger brother and—the family estate—driving a one-horse 
trap, with a parlour-maid to wait, and a groom taken out of the 
cabbage garden ? ” 

KoorMi was silent. 

“ Well,” said Keuway, “ you haven’t answered my question. I 
have a strong notion that you know something of Morse’s plans. Does 
he consider himself safe ? ” 

“ Safe ? ” Koorali echoed. “ I don’t know what you are aiming at, 
Crichton. I don’t think I want to know. Mr. Morse must always be 
safe, for he will never act against his convictions of what is right and 
best for England, I am sure of that. As for his chance of being Prime 
Minister, how should I know what he thinks? He does talk tome 
sometimes of politics—I am proud that he does not think me too 
stupid to sympathize with his aims—but not in that sort of personal 
way. What does office matter to him ? And if he did tell me the 
secrets of his party, should I be likely to betray them, even to my 
husband ? ” There was an amount of scorn in Koorali's tone. “ Mr. 
Morse will not join the war party because we wish to stay in England, 
or because he has promised you an appointment if he gets into ix)wer. 
But I can’t quite think that is so.” Her eyes met Kenway’s steadily. 
“ Has he promised you an appointment, Crichton ?” 

“It is an understanding,” replied Crichton sullenly. “You are a 
fool to supjx)se that public men ever commit themselves. A word or 
two conveys a great deal. Such things are generally understood.” 


124 


“77/i^ RIGHT honourable:^ 


Koorali did not answer. She got up from where she had been 
seated before the toilet table. She had dismissed her maid upon 
Crichton’s entrance, and had gone on herself with the coiling of her 
hair round her sleek little head. It suddenly struck Crichton that his 
wife looked particularly well in the soft white cashmere robe she wore, 
with its delicate frills and trimming of lace. There came into his face 
a look which she had seen there more than once lately, and which 
gave her a feeling of repulsion, she knew not why, for she would not 
let herself try to trace the workings of his mind. She saw the look 
now', reflected in the glass before her. 

“ What do you call that thing you’ve got on ? ” he said. “ A kind 
of tea-grown, isn’t it? Anyhow, it’s very becoming. You should 
wear something like it next time Morse comes to see you. What have 
I said to shock your sensitive nerves ? Ladies wear tea-gowns, don’t 
they ? ” 

Her large dark eyes, full of trouble and indignant appeal, which 
were turned quickly upon him, startled him. Her lips w^ere quivering, 
and he saw that she was trembling. A horrible sensation of insecurity, 
of utter loneliness, of revolt had come over her. She could not com¬ 
mand herself. ■ 

“ Koorali, w'hat is the matter ? ” he exclaimed. 

She had flung herself upon the sofa at the foot of the bed, and with 
her arms throwm over the back of the sofa, and her face buried in 
them, w'as shaking wdth suppressed sobs. She did not reply, and the 
tivmbling grew more violent. Crichton was a little alarmed. It w^as 
not like KoorMi to lose self-control completely. 

He w'ent to her and tried to soothe her, showing some genuine 
anxiety. “ Come, don’t give w^ay like this. I didn’t mean to frighten 
you about things. It’s a bad look-out for us just now, but we shall 
l)ull through all right. The season is over, luckily, and w^e sliould go 
down to the Grey Manor anyhow. And I can’t be kicked out till the 
other man comes. Perhaps by that time Morse will be in, a id I shall 
be a deuced sight better off than if I were hanging at the heels of a 
colonial Gove nment. Don’t cry. I hate it. Haven’t you got more 
pluck?” 

His remonstrances bruught no answer in words, but her trembling 
abated a little. 

“I know what it is,” continued Crichton. “ You are hysterical and 
overdone with all the going out. If you keep quiet for a bit you will 
be better. Lie down, and let me put a shawl over you.” 

He awkwardly tried to alter her position. She made a motion of 
entreaty that he ivould leave her. He went away with an angry 
protest. When he came back a little later she was sitting up, and 
was tolerably composed. She got up as he entered. 

“ Thank you,” she said. “ I am better now, I am sorry to have 
made a scene. It isn’t my way, is it ? But you are right; I am 
overdone with too much going out. I shall be myself again presently.” 

She made no allusion to their conversation or to the misfortune 


KENWAY ACTS THE HERO, 


125 

which had befallen them, nor did he. After a few moments he left 
her again. She heard him calling to Lance, who was his favourite, to 
come down and amuse him whilst he breakfasted. Lance was to his 
father something between a poodle and a court jester. And little 
Miles stole in “ to see beautiful mamma dressed.” He knew his father 
did not want him. 

When Morse came to see Koorali that afternoon, he saw that she 
was anxious and that something had occurred to trouble her. He 
guessed what it was, for he had read the telegram from South Britain 
that morning. 

He did not say anything about it to Koorali; he did not know 
whether she would care to talk about it. He had an instinctive 
impression that the best way to get a sensitive woman out of a feeling 
of her own troubles is to tell her of the troubles of others, and he 
therefore started off at once in a half-jest whole-earnest dissertation on 
the difficulties that were coming over and clouding his own path in 
politics. The country was about to be swept away by the war-passion, 
he told her. No influence, he feared, could stand up against it; but he 
was going to try his best. He would rather give up public life alto¬ 
gether, he declared, than have anything to do with countenancing or 
Banctiohing this war. But he meant to make a good fight of it before 
he gave up public life. 

“ Perhaps if you stay in England some little time longer, Mrs. Ken¬ 
way, you may see me the most unpopular man in the country.” 

“But you won’t mind that?” she said, with lighting eyes, and for¬ 
getting for the moment all about South Britain. 

“ I shan’t like it,” Morse replied. “ We none of us like to be 
unpopular; but I shall go on all the same.” 

“ Yes, I know,” Koorali said. “ You would go on all the same.” 

Morse smiled. “ Do you know,” he said, “ that there are people who 
know me, and pretty well too, and who say that I shall not go on all the 
same ? I have been a very popular man, and I enjoy popularity and 
power, and I shall perhaps have a great chance soon put in my way-” 

“ After the elections ? ” 

“Yes; after the elections. I see you are beginning to understand 
all about our affairs. Quite so; after the elections. Then they say 
that I will accept my great chances and forget my theories about the 
war. Some people who know me pretty well say that of me.” 

She looked at him straightly. 

“To know one pretty well is just not to know one at all. I know 
you won’t change.” 

They were standing near each other. He had risen to go. Impul¬ 
sively Koorali put out her hand. He took it in his for a moment. 

“ Thank you,” he said quietly. 

Something in his tone made her eyes fall, and she withdrew her 
hand. She began to fear she had said too much about him, had 
claimed too much for herself. Just at that moment, however, her 
husband came in. 



126 


RIGHT HONOURABLE" 


Keoway as he entered sent a keen glance at Morse ami at her. 
Then he advanced with elastic step and a sort of cheery defiance in 
his bright, ever-moving eyes. 

“Chucked again !” he said. “You’ve heard the news, of course? 
We’re out on the Avorld again, KoorMi and I.” 

“ Y’es, T have hcanl the news,” Morse said. “ I didn’t like to speak 
to Mrs. Kenvvay about it. I thought perhaps she would rather I 
didn’t. So I have been telling her of my own troubles.” 

“Oh, Koorali is a plucky little woman ; she won’t mind, /don’t 
mind. We’ve been through worse things before, haven’t we, girl ? I 
know I have plenty of capacity and courage and all that, and I shall 
make a way for myself here or there—here, I think. We shall be all 
right. It’s a facer for the moment; but one comes up smiling and 
ready for another round. People talk of ruin staring them in the face. 
I have always found that if you only stare boldly back you can put 
ruin out of countenance. I have done it before, and I mean to do it 
again. So that’s all about that !" 

Kenway put down on the table a little packet of papers with a 
determined, business-like air. He placed himself against the chimney- 
piece, and stood, his long neck upreared, looking at Morse as if ready 
for any fate. He played his part well, and Morse was impiressed. 

Koorali looked up at him with a certain wonder. After all, was there 
not something brave, manly, admirable about him ? She had surely 
not done him full justice. She found her eyes growing moist at the 
thought, in the hope that she really could admire him. What did it 
matter if they lost everything, so long as the very loss itself brought 
out what was best in him? Was not that to gain and not to lose? 
“ The moment Mr. Morse goes,” she said to herself, “ I’ll kiss him! ” 

“ You take it pluckily,” Morse said, with a smile. “ But you are 
really quite right; you have nothing to fear. You have talents, and 
you have friends. I can speak for one friend, if he should ever have 
anything in his power.” 

Koorali cast a grateful glance at Morse, and then felt a little abashed 
somehow, and feared she might be misunderstood. Her gratefulness 
was for Morse’s appreciation of her husband’s couraie and capacity, and 
not at all for his promise to befriend them. She would rather, some¬ 
how, that they fought their battle for themselves, or with the help of 
some of those on whose friendship Kenway had older and stronger and 
other claims. And then it struck her that when she had doubted her 
husbands account of Morse’s implied intention to get him an appoint¬ 
ment, she had wronged Crichton a little, and she felt still further 
remorseful. 

When Morse was gone, Koorali was true to her purpose. She went 
up to Ken way, put her arms round his neck, called him tenderly, “ my 
husband,” and kissed him. If at that touching and tender moment 
in her history Crichton Kenwaj- could only have understood the true 
meaning of that kiss; of the little it asked for, the much it promised; 
the meaning of the words that called him her husband, and thus 


KEN WAY ACTS THE HERO. 


127 


offered a new and an abiding union of heart and faith and life; if he 
could have understood what that new ofler of a wife’s devotion meant; 
and if he could have appreciated all and accepted all—there would be 
but little to tell about the rest of these two lives which could interest 
the reader of fiction. But Kenway looked surprised, incredulous; 
then returned her kiss with interest, ])iled up lavishly in numbers and 
in w'armth, until Koorali actually felt comp’elled to disengage herself 
from his arms, and he said— 

“ Why, Koorali, I do declare you are a good girl after all, and I do 
believe you care about me. I do believe w’e shall get on w'ell together. 

I declare I feel quite in love with you ! ” 

“Oh, let us get on well together,” she said fervently. “I hope and 
pray that w^e may; I think we shall, now. I am glad you take all 
this so well, Crichton.” 

“ Yes; I think 1 did that well, Koorali,” he said in the tone of a man 
w'ho begins to feel that he may be confidential. “ I think I’ve got 
Morse; I am sure of it. There was a stroke of genius in thatT 

“ A strtjke of genius in what, Crichton ? ” 

“ Well, y( u know, I saw at once that Morse is just the S'rt of fellow 
who is greatly taken by pluck and energy and a stout stand-up against 
fortune and odds and so forth; and I put myself in position accord¬ 
ingly. It took him at once, didn’t it?” he asked triumphantly ; “and 
I know I can count on him now. He’ll stand by me. He would have 
cared nothing about me if I had let him see that I was down in the 
mouth. We shall be all right, Koo'Mi; you’ll see; you’ll find.” 

“ I hope so,” KooiYli said in a melancholy, faltering tone. The note 
of distrust was sounded again. “I hope we shall be all right.” 

He looked at her inquiringly. 

“In our lives, I mean; you and I. In our ways to each other; in 
our feelings,” Kocrali explained. 

“Oh yes ; we shall be all right enough,” he said carelessly. 

Koorali’s spirits sank; her mind misgave her. 

* ****** 

The season was drawing to a close. Yet a little, and the light on 
the pinnacle of the Clock Tower would cease to shine of nights over 
London. Terhai s there may have been some cynical persons who 
held that the lantern of the light so soon to be put out was a symi'ol 
of the Parliament so soon also to be put out; being showy, far-shining, 
and empty. London itself might then be compared, by some fanciful 
})crson, to the Cyclops in Virgil— 

“Blonstrum informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.” 

“A monster, shapeless, huge, whose light had been put out.” 

The last Sandown meeting had taken place, and the summer 
toilettes, their fir>t freshness gone, and the tired look on the faces of 
their wearers, had somehow given to the crowded slope the appearance 
of a garden in which the flowers were overblown and drooping. Good- 
v/ood w^as over, too. There was a suggestion of satiety about London 


128 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


—satiety of pleasure and excitement. Even a nine days’ wonder, in 
the shape of a great fashionable political scandal which was flashed 
over Europe, failed here to stimulate jaded appetites to any remarkable 
activity. London—indeed, England—seemed to have drawn a long, 
deep breath; to be waiting for greater excitement still. All who could 
leave town had already gone. Some of the great theatres were closed; 
others were still kept open for apparently no other purpose than to 
enable asjtiring Hamlets from the country and ambitious Juliets from 
amateur theatricals at the West Pmd to exhibit themselves to select 
circles of invited friends in the ghastly light of an afternoon perfor¬ 
mance. Editors of papers were taking their holidays, and carrying, as 
Emerson says, their giants along with them; in other words, havin'^ 
their newspapers always on their minds, longing to see the newspapers 
everywhere first thing, and yet dreading to look at the journals because 
of the possible blunders made in their absence. Fashionable lady 
novelists. Lady Deveril among them, were seeking fresh breath of 
inspiration at Cowes and Hyde. Fashionable preachers had gone to 
])reach to select British audiences in foreign cities. Fashionable 
doctors were off to recruit their jaded and delicate nerves and to talk 
scandal in the Engadine. The painters were scattering everywhere, 
from the Crinan Canal to the laud of the midnight sun. Later on, 
those who deal in Oriental subjects, and whose dusky Eastern beauties 
and Egyptian sunsets, with the picturesque Arab and the lean camel 
in the foreground, are institutions as fixed as the Royal Academy 
itself, will be found in lazy dahabeahs on the Kile, or by the Jaffa 
Gate of Jerusalem. Later on, everything will have changed again. 
The wheel will be turned and the kaleidoscope will have had another 
shake. But now the interval was one of expectancy and transition. 
The last sands of the season were running out. 

London began to remind one oddly of an old-fashioned illumination 
in its expiring hour, most of the lamps gone out, and those that still 
burned flickering faintly into decay. “ Ah, surely,” says Byron, 
“ nothing dies but something mourns,” and no doubt there were hearts 
that mourned over the dying season. Girls, whose first season it -was, 
mourned over it because they loved the excitement of the balls and 
parties, and were sorry that the fun was at an end. Girls who had 
seen many seasons mourned still more bitterly because of the pro¬ 
posals which had not been made, and the sad inexorable lapse of time, 
and the inward conviction that their friends were counting their years 
and wondering whether they would never get married, or worse still, 
wondering whether they would ever get married. Itlany a member of 
Parliament lamented the decay of the season, because its close must be 
followed by the general election, and he knew only too well that an 
unappreciative constituency would put some other man in his place. 
Tender sentimental regrets were thrown back on the season by other 
men and women for other causes, as one throws kindly flowers on 
a grave. Truly every season is a grave of deep hopes and ambitions, 
of affections that pined and withered, and of ruined chances; but it is 


^^ COO - EEP ^ 129 

also green with fresh grass springing up, and gives the promise of new 
flowers. 

Morse was still in town, waiting till Parliament should be dissolved. 
Lady Betty was not with him—would not be with him for some 
weeks to come. She was in attendance upon her father, who had been 
ordered to Homburg, and Lord Germilion’s health was perhaps a 
happy plea for Lady Betty. Homburg was very gay that season. 
Some of her favourite Eoyalties were there, and there were to be races 
of exceptional interest, and, later on, a royal wedding in one of the 
German capitals. 

Crichton Kenway and KoorMi were at the Grey Manor—or rather 
KoorMi was there, with her children, for Crichton had accepted an 
invitation to shoot with some bachelor friends in Scotland. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

“ COO-EE!” 

M'iie Grey Manor was a quaint old house, part of which had been 
built in the Tudors’ time, and part in that of the Georges. Like 
most of the old houses in the Midlands, it was built with stone of 
a wan sort of grey, which had brown veins streaking through it, and 
patches of reddish lichen clinging here and there, and the oldest part 
was almost covered with ivy, which spread tendrils across the small 
mullioned windows—picturesque in themselves, with their queer little 
panes of thick glass sunk in lead and curious iron hasps and fastenings 
—and over the tiled weather-stained roof and twisted chimneys. This 
oldest part consisted mainly of a long low hall, with massive oak 
doors facing each other, and a row of bedrooms above. When both 
doors were open, one looked straight through the house from back to 
front. The Georgian bit was an addition of four lofty rooms, witli 
the tall windows that belonged to that style of architecture, stuck on 
at right angles to the narrow gabled building and irregular roof-top. 
The house was quite small, and could hardly pretend to the title of 
!Manor. It had been a manor-house once, but for years and years had 
been tenanted by generations of farmers, who had cultivated the fields 
all round it. Now it had been bought by some speculative person in 
a neighbouring count}'. A bailiff occupied a cottage near the farm 
buildings, and the Grey Manor, not sufficiently commodious or well- 
situated to be rented by a family of means, was usually let as a hunt¬ 
ing-box, and as such had been taken by Crichton Kcnway. 

It stood at the end of a sloping avenue of gnarled and half-dead 
beeches, on a raised terrace which overlooked a flat stretch of meadows, 
banked by rising ground. These uplands were laid out in grass and 
corn, and joined the horizon line, except where it was broken by the 
tall chimney of an iron foundry and two straight rows of poplars 
Hanking a distant farmhouse. The river Lynde ran flush with its 


130 


^THE RIGHT HONOURABLEP 


3 filgy banks down tlie valley—a narrow stream, forking a little higher 
up, where it was spanned by a huge rail way-bridge, anil curving and 
twisting, so that in every part of the meadows some gleam of it might 
be seen. The view would have secerned commonplace to an ordinary 
observer. There was nothing picturesque in the foundry, or the rail¬ 
way bridge \vi li its iron girders, or in the shoemaking town showing 
along the valley less than a mile oft’. Yet the landscape had a wild¬ 
ness about it and a vaiiety of aspect which appealed strongly to the 
pioetic mind. In the summer daytime, it was a peaceful English scene, 
all green grass and waving corn and rippling water, which neverthe¬ 
less reminded Koorali of the paddock ot an Australian head station, 
with the farm cattle and sheep browsing close to the hoU'C, and the 
apparent absence of boun iaries. But the win! sweeping down the 
valley in stormy weather had beaten the pollarded willows, dotted in 
rows here and there, into fantastic shapes. In such weather now they 
looked like olive trees, with the silvery side of the leaves upward under 
a wrathful sky. In winter they seemed to resemble a procession of 
gaunt old crones, with bent and witchlike forms, beseeching alms. 
The sun set over the town, and thvn the ugly buildings and sm<vky 
chimneys were transfigured by purple and golden light. There were 
red str< aks on the river; the outlines blended in a pvjetic haze, and a 
traveller might have fancied he was looking across one of the plains of 
Argos or Thessaly, hater on, the furnace redch ned the sky. Some¬ 
times there w'as a mist, and then the tops of the willows showed as 
islands in a white lake, and a passing express dashed above it like 
a comet leaving its trail of fire. 

There w^ere no gardens or shrubbery about the Grey Manor. A stone 
w all, on which seedlings grew plentifully, closed in on two sides the 
little square lawn. There was nothing else but the exposed terrace 
walk, with a natural arbour of yew trees, hundreds of years old, at 
each end, and a steep grassy bank in which were cut iw'o curious holes 
that might have been looiiholes for media3val warfare, but were in 
reality intended to give light to some rambling cellars beneath. 

There was, indeed, the tradition of a subterranean passage connecting 
a winter camp of the Romans, ujxm which the neighbouring village of 
Lyndehester stood, with their summer camp beside the river Lynde, 
on the site of which the Grey Manor was built and the cornfieids of 
the larm flourished. Traces of the Roman encampment still remained, 
in the shape of a pair of rough-hewn stone collins standing at the end 
of the lawn, in which some clumps of sunflowers had either been 
jilanted or had sown themselves. The whole place was old-world, and 
full of impressions and associations. It aftected Koon'ili most strangely. 
It deepened her dreamy moods. It was all in harmony Avith her fancies 
and yearnings. Sometimes, as she wandered alone by the river, she 
could almost imagine that she was once more roaming in the Australian 
bush. She had a curious sense of irresix)nsibility, as if she knew her¬ 
self to be a mere straw in the current—a plaything in the hands of 
destiny. And she had another odd feeling about the place—a sort of 


^^COO-EE! 


prophetic instinct that it was bound up with her own fate; that a 
great joy or a great sorrow—she dared not guess which—would befall 
her there; so that everything about the grey house, every phase of the 
landscape, the terrace walk, the solemn yews, the shadows and the 
mists in the valley, the leaping fires of the furnace which she often 
watehed late into the night, seemed to her to have some special 
significance and to be identified with her own mood of tender 
melancholy. 

Yet her melancholy was not painful. The gentle depression which 
comes after strain or nervous excitement is sometimes almost plea¬ 
surable. Koorali told herself that this was what she was feeling. She 
was tired, she .said; she had been seeing too ma^jy people, taking in 
too manj^ new impressions. She was tired of dressing up and laughing 
and talking “ the fine weather.” Why did the tears come into her 
eyes as she remembered Morse’s phrase? She had found the great 
world of little account to her; and her own home had seemed n>> less 
barren than formerly, in contrast with the glare and glitter of London 
life. She was glad to be here, among the grey stones and the grim 
yews and the relics of the dead and gone Romans; glad to be without 
her husband, and with only her boys for companions; glad of the repose 
and the loneliness. 

For she was very lonely. It came upon her with a .shock sometimes 
that she had never in her life felt so lonely. She used to wake up iit 
night and hear the train rushing by over the river, and the thought 
would overwhelm her suddenly, as such thoughts do, that among the 
myriads of sympathetic souks in the world, there was not one to which 
hers could turn with certainty of being understood. In the deeper 
.^ense of the relationship, she had neither father, mother, brother, 
friend, nor husbai.d ; and she felt an alien among strange people in a 
strange land. 

She was restless, and she hardly understood why. She occupied 
herself in arranging the knick-knacks she had brought from London, 
in hanging draperies, and decorating the white-panelled walls. She 
' walked a great deal, strolling for miles in aimless fiishion along the 
river bank, where there was a towing-path, wdiile the boys ran hither 
and thither, picking blacklierries from the hedges, and reeds and marsh 
forget-me-nots. She did not show herself in the road or the town, and 
avoided acquaintanceship with the neighbours. That would come soon 
enough, she thought, when Crichton came back and insisted on dragging 
her into evidence, and when Zen, settled at the Friory-on-the-Water, 
should begin the series of garden parties and entertainments she had 
been jdanning. 

One afternoon in late August .she was walking alone by the river. 
The children were not with her. They had been taken by their nurse 
to a fancy fair at Lyndchester, and she had come out, carrying a little 
hooked implement, to gather bulrushes with which to decorate her 
drawing-room afresh before Ken way’s return. She had gone some 
.distance. Her depression seemed to h.ave left her, and she felt alto- 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


132 

gether more light-hearted, more capable of pure physical enjoyment 
than she had been for a long time before. As she filled her hands with 
the reeds and with trails of the nightshade, in this month red with 
berries, her pleasure in the occupation Avas almost childish. Every 
now and then she Avould pause and look over the meadow, and watch 
the cattle and sheep, and sniff the new-mown corn. The reapers had 
been at work, and the air was sweet with the breath of harvest. It 
was all unfamiliar to Koorali—the flat landscape, the green grass, the 
yellow corn. “England is beautiful, too,” she said to herself. She 
liked the crisp feel of the stubble underfoot as she strayed away from 
the towing-path. There was a fascination about the slate-coloured 
stream between its sedgy margins. In some places the current ran 
SAviftly, in others there were still leaden pools, with patches of velvety 
slime and little islets of tufted rushes. Where the Avater was clear, 
the reflections showed distinct as in a looking-glass. The sky Avas 
dull, with Avhite Avoolly clouds banked up on the southern horizon. 
AAvay to the west lay the town, and the valley seemed to stretch very 
far. Koorali had reached a spot Avhere there Avas an old grey stone 
bridge, vandyked as the bridges are in th’s county. Close to it, the 
riA’er divided again, and made a tongue of land, on which stood a red 
brick water-mill. A delicious Avalled-in garden belonged to the mill— 
a garden filled with currant, gooseberry, and raspberry bushes, and 
Avith borders of fat hollyhocks, sunfloAvers, honesty, and Canterbury 
bells, and all the blossoms in the children’s picture-books. Koorali 
could.smell the lavender and the late carnations across the stream. 
She thought of Miles’s pet rhyme— 

“Mary, iMary, quite contrary ; how does your garden grow ? 

With silver bells and cockle shells, and-" 

She could not remember the rest, an 1 was amused at her own childish 
longing to go into the garden. But these little commonplace things 
had the charm of novelty for the Australian girl, and her nature Avas 
a SAveet and simple one that did not need artificial excitement to make 
its happiness. She liked the whole scene. There Avas to her some¬ 
thing poetic in the little promontory and the gnarled pollarded willows 
growing close to the edge, in the cold still Avater, and in the solitary 
Avhite swan Avhich sailed about intensifying the impression of loneliness 
and tender sentiment. 

Koorali’s course Avas interrupted by a dam that served the mill. 
She turned, crossed the bridge, getting on to the towing-path again, 
and Avalked along homeward, still looking back regretfully at the old- 
fashioned flower border across the stream. There Avas a bull grazing far 
aAvay on the path in front of her. Koorali eyed the animal nervously, 
ashamed of her timidity, yet afraid to go on—for even her Australian 
training had not enabled her to overcome a constitutional terror of 
cattle. It tossed its head—aggressively she thought—advanced a step 
or two, then stood still. It moved Avhen Koor5,li moved, but it came 
forAvard Avhiie she retreated. She coo-eed half involuntarily. A 


^^COO-EEr^ 133 

shock-beaded youth slouched out of the mill yard. lie did not seem 
to notice her, and she coo-eed again, louder. 

“Hoi,” he drawled. And then in answer to Koorali’s question 
whether the beast was quiet, drawled again in strong Lyndfordshire 
accents, “ Yeow wun’t get no harm, Oi thoink.” 

“ He thinks,” murmnfred Kooiiili tragically. She was enjoying the 
small adventure. 

“ Whom does the bull belong to ? ” she asked. “ Is it a bull ? Can’t 
you drive it away ? ” 

“It be Muster Dobito’s; and it he a bull,” rejoined the youth, “Oi 
thoink. Yeow go straight by. He wiu’t stur, Oi thoink.” 

Koorali fairly laughed aloud. The laugh made a pretty tinkling 
sound over the water, and she herself, standing with the tall reeds in 
her arms and the amusement and perplexity brightening her eyes, was 
a very charming object. 

Just at that moment, and to her utter surprise, her Australian 
“coo-ee”—the peculiar cry, long, clear, and vibrating, with a sort of 
plaintive tone, the cry by which wanderers in the bush call for help 
and companionship—w’as answ'ered by another coo-ee, as genuinely 
Australian as her own. The cry was in a man’s voice; and it might 
have come from the very heart of the Australian bush. 

Someone stepping out of the mill parlour thought instantly of a 
picture he had seen years ago—a girl, slender of form and with a 
dreamy joyous face, outlined against a grey sky. 

Kooiali’s coo-ee was an echo from the past. It had startled Morse 
as he was taking leave of the miller after a chat on Dissent, politics, 
and the sentiments of the agricultural labourer, that unknown quantity 
which might decide the future destinies of England. He had hardly 
known at first whether it was a real coo-ee, and then he came out and 
gave, half-unconsciously, his answ’ering call, and saw the little creature 
standing there, separated from him by the cold grey line of water, 
with her pathetic face as childlike and as unconscious as when first it 
began to haunt him. Not the KoorMi of London drawing-rooms, but 
that Koorali of the Australian dawn, which seemed to stand apart 
from his everyday life, and to have enshrined itself in the most poetic 
recesses of his nature. 

They looked at each other across the narrow river. Koorali uttered 
a low exclamation. To Morse, the cry of surprise and joy sounded 
inexpressibly sweet. But all was sweet and dear—the scene, the 
fading afternoon, the unexpected sight of her—too sweet and too dear 
to Lady Betty’s husband, to the party leader, the man of the world, 
the Bight Honourable Sandham Morse. 

KoorMi bent forward, with arms outstretched involuntarily. Her 
lips 'were parted. Her face, a little upturned, was more eloquent than 
she knew. It was such a strange little face, Morse had often thought. 
It could look so frozen up at times, so grave and sad. But, then, when 
a smile of true feeling broke over it, and with a natural gesture, the 
throat curved backward, showing the chin foreshortened, the nostrils 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


134 

dilated, and the quiver-shaped lips trembling, there came into it an 
expression of intense sensibility, and the suggestion it gave of capacity 
lor passionate emotion might well stir the heart of such a man as 
Morse, and take away his self-command for a moment. 

But he recovered himself immediately. 

“ Mrs. Kenway! How refreshing to hear an Australian coo-ee! I 
did not know that the Grey Manor was near enough for you to walk 
almost as far as Bromswold. I’ll be over with you in a moment, and 
I’ll drive away the bull and carry your reeds for you.” 

Before she could answer he was walking along the bank, and presently 
he had crossed the bridge, sent the bull to the other side of the meadow, 
and was beside her. 

“ For your future comfort, Mrs. Kenway, I’ll tell you that legislation 
provides against the letting loose of dangerous animals in a field where 
there is a towing-path. The bull was a very peaceable animal; quite 
a benign old bull.” 

Kooiali looked very bright now, and laughed at her owm discom¬ 
fiture. 

“ I wasn’t really frightened, Mr. Morse. I wanted to imagine myself 
into a dramatic situation; that was all. But, tel) me, w'here is 
Bromswold? And have you become a travelling tinker, as you said 
you wished, that you are wandering by my river?” 

Koorali held out her hand, and Morse took it in his own, his eyes 
resting on her with tender interest. 

“No, Mrs. Kenway, I haven’t turned travelling tinker yet, though 
it is true that 1 sometimes wish I were one, and out of the ttirmoil of 
polities and the great world. And I don’t mean to let you claim an 
entire right to the river. It belongs to Bromswold too, which I find 
now can only be a short distance from the Grey Manor across the 
meadows. It is six or seven miles bv road.” 

“ You are there now ? ” asked Koorali, using the pronoun collectively. 

“ 1 am there—taking advantage of being alone to get up my speeches 
for the election, and to review the political situation, as the newspapers 
put it. No; as a matter of fact, I have what a public man should 
never own to—private business to look after—farms unlet, and that 
sort of thing. But Lady Betty is not here. She is still at Homburg 
with her father.” 

Koorali had noticed that, unreserved as he was to her in regard to 
political matters and even his feeliiigs and opinions, he did not often 
talk to her about his wife, and he always meritit)U(*d Lady Betty 
formally. She a^ked if Lord Germilion was better’. They seemed to 
be in the couventional atmosphere once more. 

“Arden and two or three other fellows are coming down, I believe, 
next week,” Mor.se went on i-ather hurriedly; “and I must confess to 
abetting a slaughter you won’t approve of, Mrs. Kenway. One of the 
men is great at pigeon shooting, and wants to get his hand in for the 
Monte Carlo matches; so I have been interviewing my friend the miller 
on the subject of pigeons.” 


-^'COO-EEP^ 


135 

There was a little silence. They had begun to walk slowly along 
the river bank. 

“Tell me,” he said abruptly. “This place suits you, doesn’t it? 
There is something wild and picturesque about the long stretch of 
meadows, an<l the willows, and the sunset reddening the water? It’s 
the sort of place to roam about and dream in. It isn’t English, except 
the mill there, which might have come out of one of George Eliot’s 
novels.” 

“ I have been thinking of Miles’s story-books,” said Koorali. “ And 
I have 1 een longing to go into the garden and listen if the flowers 
wouldn’t each tell its own story, like the flowers in the old witch’s 
garden when Hans Andersen’s little Gerda went out into the wide 
world.” 

“Come, then,” said Morse, with an eagerness foreign to his usual 
manner. “ It is a garden in a story-hook. Let us be like children for 
once, and I will ask the miller to let me gather you a bunch of lavender, 
and the flowers you fancy. They will tell you a story, perhaps, though 
they won’t have any for me.” 

The two had crossed the bridge, and he opened a gate in the red 
brick wall, and took Kooraii into ihe garden. The house door at which 
he tapi)ed led straight into the little paTour; and here, over a tea- 
service and a large platt^ of buttered toast, sat a purple-fliced old man, 
with a Bible open beside his jdate, an elderly woman in rusty black 
and a purple “crossover,” sourly sanctimonious in expression, and a 
youn.er woman, lugubrious-looking also, and in deep weeds. 

Morse exjdained that the old gentleman was Mr. Popkiss, the miller’s 
father, the e'derly woman his daughter, and the younger one a lodger. 
He introduced Koorali, and accejKcd for her and for himself the cup of 
tea which was olfered. His mann-rwas delightful, Koorali thought; 
it was so frai.k and easy. She did not wonder at his popularity among 
the p. orer classes. 

“ I want you to let Mrs. Kenway pick a bunch of flowers for herself, 
Mr. Popkiss. I don't thiuk she has ever seen an old-fashioned garden, 
with real English flowers in it, quite like yours. Mrs. Kenway is an 
Australian, and only came over to this country a very short time 
ago.” 

The information seemed to impress Mr. Popkiss somewhat. He was 
delighted at Koorali’s admiration of the garden; and then he asked a 
good many questi *iis about Austr.dia. tie thoughr, it was ‘‘a p'ity 
there weren’t a many m -re young men making for Aust;nlia, instead of 
starving in counting-houses.” “ Why, sir,” he said, lu ning to Morse, 
“ there are boys in the big cities that don’t e irn enough for bread and 
cheese—no, nor bread by itself. P e got a nephew out in Australia as 
makes as much in one day at the [dough, as his brother does in a week 
in a t a merchant’s office in London. He’d set his h(*art on that, 
because he thought it a finer sort of tiling. Twenty-live pounds a year, 
anil expected to dress like a gentleman in a t()p[»er and a cloth coat! 
Why, I wouldn’t stand that, ma’am; I’d first just kick the crown 


136 ^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE:' 

out of the shiny hat, and then I’d off to Australia. Bless me, if I 
wouldn’t! ” 

“ No, you ain’t a-going to tell me that, Popkiss. You'd stick to the 
old country, even though she’s going down,” said a big burly man who 
came in at that moment. 

He stopped short in the middle of the room, while Morse got up, 
and held out his hand with a cordial “ Ah! how are you, Mr. Dobito? 
I heard of you out cubbing this morning. How’s the mare?” 

“ Oh, I’m topping well, and she don’t want no missing, Mr. Morse. 
She’s a wonderful good ’oss, if you don’t overpace her. Not a pleasant 
’oss, not an easy mouth ; but there ain’t a stiff fence or a trappy ditch 
that &l\e can’t find her way over. She’s as clever as a cat, she is. 
There weren’t ever a fence she couldn’t get through. She run sound 
—she do.” 

Mr. Dobito sat down after delivering this emphatic encomium on 
the mare,and went straight to his business, which appeared to be with 
Mrs. Prowse, and concerned a pig which he had bought at her request 
at Lyndchester market. When it was done with, he got up again, 
but did not seem inclined to go away. He was a curious-looking man, 
a perfect type of the old Midland farmer, tall, square-built, with a. 
weather-beaten face, and a bald head fringed with iron-grey. He had 
another fringe of more stubbly growth round his chin. His eyes were 
black, bead}’', and humorous, his eyebrows and lashes thick and over¬ 
hanging. His upper lip was long, his teeth were long also, and his 
mouth seemed the same width at the corners as at the middle. 

You weren’t at the Liberal meeting at Lyndchester the other night, 
Dobito?” said Morse, anxious to draw him into conversation. 

“ Pm no Liberal, nor yet Conservative, nor Kadical, Mr. Morse. 
Where’s the good? I’m for the farmers, I am, and which of^’em all 
will listen to what the farmers have got to say, and call ’em aught but 
a grumbling lot ? Why, God bless my soul, it’s not because it’s the 
nature of farmers to grumble; it’s because of the extray burdens 
and the working man I I’m quite tired of that there working man. 
The Padicals and the noospapers have made an idol of him—they 
have.” 

“ But they tell me wheat is going to rise, Mr. Dobito,” said Morse. 

“ It’ll rise when we’ve done growing it,” said Mr. Dobito, with a dark 
and ominous frown. “Mark ye, Mr. Morse, England’s going down. 
I don’t say that she won’t pick uj); but there’s too many cheap things 
sold. That’s where the mischief lies. The work ain’t well done. 
There’s the shoes now.” 

Mrs. Prowse and the widow nodded in tragic assent. 

“You ain’t a-going to tell we,” continued Mr. Dobito, “that the 
Ivussians, or the Belgians, or the Japanese, or any other ese is a-going 
to stand shoes with paper soles, and to send their leather over here 
when they can turn it into shoes at home. These manufactors all 
about here ain’t got a conscience. They all stood ahind the door when 
consciences were given out. They make articles that ain’t no articles 


^^COO-EE! 


137 


at all. But mark yc, ma’am,” and I^Ir. Dobito fixed KoorJdi witli bis 
glittering eye, “ when the great Maker of all things has Ills word to 
say, why I reckon He’ll make it hot for ’em! ” 

“Mrs. Kenway hasn’t heard about the paper soles yet, Dobito,” 
explained ^lorse. “ She has only been at the Grey Manor for a few 
weeks. We must enlighten her about county affairs—you and I.” • 

“ Not !Mrs. Kenway at the Priory ?” said Mr. Dobito, looking doubt¬ 
fully at Koorali. “ Quite another sort, begging your pardon, ma’am. 
That’s Mrs. Eustace.” 

My sister-in-law,” said KoorMi. 

“ She’s no mean galloper, she ain’t,” exclaimed Mr. Dobito enthusi¬ 
astically. “ I’ve seen her giving her ’oss a stretch. She do love dogs 
—why, she has a street of ’em, and she wants me to give her my opinion 
al)out a foxhound terrier she’s got, and she's a-going to bring him over 
to my ricks. I don’t think so much of her husband. He don’t care 
about hunting; a coach and pair, that’s about his form. Looks as 
though he wanted roast beef and port wine. I reckon he lives on kick¬ 
shaws and your new-fangled soda water, or Apollinaris, with a dash of 
whiskey in ’em, that makes it worse. I don’t hold to that rubbish. 
It’s my way to go on straight with the port.” 

“ Really, Mr. Dobito, I think you’re a little unjust to my brother- 
in-law,” said Koorali, laughing. “I assure you Pve seen him go on 
straight with the port too.” 

“ Maybe,” returned the farmer. “ I did hear of him the other day 
buying two hunters—I didn’t see him, mind—I didn’t see him; but I 
thought to myself ^That looks better.’ Well, good day to you, Mrs. 
Piowse, I'll see about the pig coming. Good-bye, ma’am, I hope I’ll 
see you again, with Mrs. Eustace. Good-bye, Mr. Morse.” 

Old Popkiss, in bis capacity of host, hobbled to the door, and watched 
]\Ir. Dobito mount. When he came back, he seemed determined to 
have his inning.s, for Mr. Dobito had monopolized the conversation. 
iMr. Popkiss talked volubly and discursively. He addressed Morse 
principally. 

Koorali was a little shy, but she tried to make conversation with the 
women. Presently, however, the younger one in black got up with a 
somewhat tragic air and withdrew. 

“She’s a widow that we have here with us, ma’am,” remarked Mr. 
Popkiss confidentially. She’s the widow of the doctor’s assistant at 
Lyndchester. She’s in deep sorrow.” 

"“Oh, I hope that she didn’t mind our coming in,” exclaimed Koorali 
sympathetically. 

“It comes hard upon her,” continued Mr. Popkiss; “for she has 
been used to high life—lo high lilc,” he repeated impressively. “A 
horse and shay and a pound a day. Not that she ain’t comfortable 
now; but for them as has been used to high life, it’.s hard to come 
down to that which is low. But I says to her, ‘ The Lord must ha’ 
set great store on you, Mrs. Bird, or He wouldn’t have taken your 
husband from you.’” 

13 


138 


RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


“Some of us might think that view of Providence rather a harsh 
one/’ said Morse. 

“There’s my daughter, Mrs. Prowse,” Mr. Popkiss went on, taking 
no notice of the remonstrance, “a widow likewise; and her husband 
was a sore trial—as must be a consolation to Mrs. Bird; for it’s com¬ 
forting to the afflicted to be with them that have pissed through the 
deep waters.” 

Koorali looked sympathetically at Mrs. Prowse, who cast down her 
eyes, conscious apparently of having been unjustly buffeted by Fate, 
and heaved a deep sigh. 

“It were an awful trial,” she murmured. “No one knows what it 
is but them as has to endure it. I wouldn’t wish ray enemy worse 
luck nor a husband as ha’ got a liver.” 

Morse laughed pleasantly as he rose. 

“We’ve all got livers in these days, Mrs. Prowse—we men; and 
tempers, too. 1 am afraid that both Mrs. Ken way and my wife 1 ave 
to suffer from them sometimes. Now, we’ll go and gather our Mowers, 
if we may, and I shan’t let you come out with us, Mrs. Prows •, for 
the mists are rising, as I know that you arc apt to take a chill and 
are not as strong as you might be.” 

They said good-bye, shaking hands with the old people, and left the 
parlour. As KoorMi stooped over the lavender bush underneath the 
open window she heard Mrs. Prowse remark in a tone of gratification— 

“There he a difference in the hearts of men, to be sure. Now, Mr. 
Morse, he do show a heart for sickness. There’s parson at Lyndchest -r 
—he don’t understand a poor body’s complaints. I met him the other 
day, and I’d just put my foot out, to pick up a few sticks. * Why, 
Mrs. Prowse,’ says he, ‘ I’m pleased to see you so well, and taking a 
walk.* And he might ha’ knovved,” added Mrs. Prowse, with sorrowful 
resentment, “ that I were but weakly in my health, and couldn’t get 
as far as the bridge to save my life, nor have done it this many years.” 

Koorali laughed softly, and looked up at Morse, who added clove 
}»itiks and sweet-smelling stocks to her lavender, and soon they had a 
uoodly bunch. He watched her as one might watch a happy child. 
In truth she was very happy. She enjoyed the little experience, 
d'here was in it something idyllic, and, simple as it all was, unlike any 
other experience. He too seemed to have unbent, and to be more of 
the schoolboy than the statesman. As they walked along the river 
bank towards the Grey Manor they talked in an inconsequent fashion, 
which was, for that reason perhaps, very sweet. It was the easy 
interchange of passing thoughts between two dear companions, who 
are living just in the hour and in the certainty of each other’s sympathy, 
and underlying the light flow there was the faint consciousness of 
emotion, at once exciting and soothing. She knew, though he did not 
tell her, that he had been thinking much of her during their separation. 
Nothing definite was said about the loss of her husband’s appoin'^ment 
and the political crisis at hand. Yet she felt vaguely that both had 
been in his mind in connection with her wishes for the future, lit 


COO-EEr^ 


Rsl^ed her, “Did she like the Grey Manor? Did she regret London? 
Would she mind living in the country for a time, or would she prefer 
to go back to Australia?” And from her simple replies, and the 
chance revelations she made of her occupations, her interests, her train 
of thought, he learned with a curious pleasure that she was begiMiiing 
lo be fond of England, that she could be very happy with her children 
in the quiet natural life she led. It was monotonous, perhaps, she 
said ; but notiiing jarred here. And she thought she liked being dull, 
and sometimes even melancholy was pleasant—“ like sad poetry.” She 
liked to be’left alone, and she liked “ the peace of it all.” And then 
it came out that all this time her husband had been away. 

Morse asked when Ken way was expected back. 

“ To-morrow, or the next day, I think,” she answered; “ but Crichton 
is always uncertain, and it depends upon whether he has good shooting 
and is amused.” 

“ I hope he will be here on the 1st,” said Morse, “ and that he will 
tramp a few turnip-fields whth me. I can’t tell what sort of a bag we 
are likely to get oil’ Bromswold; but, anyhow, we shall have a few 
birds.” 

They had come to the bend of the river below the railway bridge. 

I'he sun was gone down, and there was only a faint radiance in the 
west. It did not seem to reach them. Here the water was leaden, 
and the images in it of the trees and the arches of the bridge looked 
black and sharp. A man fishing at the sedgy border of the bend stood 
refiectod—two figures, as it were, joined at tlie feet—a strange lonely 
object against the sky. There was a thin vaporous moon shining above 
the Grey Manor, which rose on the opposite bank. 

Morse was struck by the aspect of the place—the raised terrace, 
with its odd loo[)holes, and the grey house, ivy-grown and set between 
the clumps of solemn yeus. He, too, at that instant felt something 
of Koorali’s prophetic instinct. 

He went with her to a wicket gate at one end of the terrace beneath 
the yews, and opened it for her to pass through. Then he held out 
his hand. 

“ You won't come in ?” she said, with timid questioning. “ I want 
you to see the house and some Australian things I have put up.” 

“ Not this evening. I shall have to walk fast to get home in time 
for an ajipointment. But may I come to-morrow afternoon and see 
you—and the Australian things?” 

“ Oh yes, I shall he so glad.” A bright look of pleasure flashed 
over the sensitive little face. She gatliered up her reeils and her 
flowers, holding them close to her so that the bulrushes framed her 
head. 

He seemed to linger. “ Y'es,” he said, at once musingly and abruptly, 
“ I like this background for you better than the London one. It seems 
somehow to bring you back as you first appeared to me. Do you 
remember, when we met in London, how your name—KoorMi—came 
to my lips at once ? 1 feci the same sort of impulse here.” 


140 ^^THE RIGHT HONOURADLET 

KoorMi turned her large soft eyes straight upon him in that silent 
way she had. No words she could have uttered then would have 
conveyed to him what that look told. It was so childlike, and yet so 
full of diiinity, of pathos, of trust. 

fie took her hand in his. His eyes were no less earnest, no less 
nnriinching in their gaze. “ Good-bye,” he said, “ Koorkli, my little 
queen.” 

“ C3ood-bye,” she answered, in a strange, suhdut d voice, and they 
parted. 

As he walked homeward and from the river bank looked up at the 
terrace, he saw her standing there still, with her children by her side. 
She was watching him; but her children were by her side. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

“one touch LiGiirs UP TWO la:mps.” 

The next morning’s post-bag, which came when Koorali was break¬ 
fasting, brought no news of Crichton. Koorali had half expected to 
hear that he would return that day. Now she knew that he was not 
coming. As she put down the last of the pile of unopened letters, at 
which she had glanced one by one, and was certain that there was 
none from him, she was almost frightened at the wild bound her 
heart gave. Another day of peace and irresponsibility—of freedom, of 
happiness. What had come to her ? Why the soft glow at her heart, 
the secret hugging of moments, which owed their charm to pleasurable 
anticipiition V To what did she look forward ? She had been lonely; 
she had been vaguely sad. Now she was no longer lonely and sad. 
Her sjdrits had regained their elasticity. The world was beautiful, the 
sky was bright, and the air sweet. She wanted to wander out in the 
sunshine, to breathe the scent of flowers and corn and meadow-sweet, 
to have her pulses stirred by the rustle of the wind, the singing of the 
birds, the murmur of the bees. Why should she not yield to this 
luxurious sense of delight, which was in itself so pure and so natural? 
She shook herself free of the chill terror which for an instant seized 
and bewildered her. She caught up her letters again, and took little 
Miles’s hand in hers. The child had been watching her wistfully, 

“ Come, my little boys,” she said, “ we shall have such a happy 
morning, and while I read my letters, you shall go and get your rakes, 
and we will make the lawn'tidy, because we are going to have a visitor 
to-day.” 

“Who?” cried Lance. And Miles asked eagerly, “ Is it Mr. 
Morse ? ” 

“ Yes ; it is Mr. Morse,” answered Koorali. 

“They were talking about Mr. Morse at Lyndchester fair yesterday,” 
said Lance, “and one man said he was a coward, because he wanted 


^^ONE TOUCH LIGHTS UP TWO LAM PS I 141 

the English to knock under and not fight. Fight who, mamma ? 
And atiotlicr man—I think it was Mr. liohito—was very angry, and 
he said he wished they’d make Mr. Morse Prime Minister, because 
he’d take taxes off the people.” 

Kooid i listened with interest. “And what else did they say, 
Lance?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” said Lance. “ I didn’t care. I want to go 
hack to Australia; it’s all jolly humbug here. Oh yes, I remember. 
They were talking about Prime Ministers, and Mr. Dohito said there 
was old Gladstone would stand up with a long glib tongue and talk 
a lot of bosh, but that Mr. Morse was the man for the farmers, for he 
wanted to make Englishmen comfortable, and didn’t care to go about 
the world killing savages. What does that mean, mamma? Who 
is killing savages ? ” 

Koorali read her letters under the yew trees. One from Zenobia, in 
a great square envelope, fantastically ribbed and mottled and emblazoned 
with the Kenway arms, told her that her time of seclusion w\as almost 
over. Zen wTote a big round hand, like the hand of a schoolboy of 
nine. Her epistolary style was discursive, like her conversation, and 
sometimes amusing. She wrote from the Canteloupes’ place in York¬ 
shire, where she and Eustace were staying on their way lack from 
Scotland. 

“Dearest KoorAli, 

“ We are going to be at the Priory on the 2nd. You and 
Crichton are to come over and stop a week with me, and admire the 
house now it’s done up. I think you’ll say I know how to make 
myself comfortable. Having .done that, I shall get you and Lord Arden 
to show me how I can make the village comfortable. It’s all beastly 
new—T mean the furniture. The village is as old as the Knights. 
Templar. I notice that in most houses the furniture isn’t new, and 
that it looks dirty. I like things clean—spick-and-span; floors you 
could eat your dinner off. Anyhow, I’rn new, so it will suit me, if it 
doesn’t suit Eustace. I think I’m too new for him, only he is too 
polite to say so. The Family hasn’t snuffed me out yet. There are 
sixteen of them here. It’s family sauce with everything. Some of 
them are Catholics and some are Protestants; that’s the only variety. 

I notice there’s an awful lot of ceremony in the way Protestants approach 
their Creator. Sunday is the State function. It must be something 
real serious before they’ll venture on a confidential week-day com¬ 
munication. Old Cantelonpe, in his own house, looks about as com¬ 
fortable and as much at home as a cat in a cold bath. Her ladyship 
snaps him up pretty sharp. She’s a beast, with a long nose and short 
petticoats—‘suitable for country wear, my dear’—and she looks at 
my velvet frock wuth an evil eye. I do love velvet, but it seems to 
get the mange when she looks at it. I feel a patchwork of brutality 
: fKi blasphemy when she empties out S"lomon’s precepts over mo. 
’i'ell Crichton there’s a man here wdth his eye on a spaniel exactly 


142 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 

answering to the description he gave me of what he wanted. She is 
black, without a white hair; nine months old, tender-mouthed, used 
t » rabbits, but isn’t acquainted with partridges. Her mother took 
.•^ei ond prize at Birmingham, and she costs four pounds. If Crichton 
won’t have her, she shall go into my dog-street. I am afraid, my 
dear, the horizon of your prospects is beastly clouded. The Family 
is a widow’s cruise of dark prognostics. ‘ Sweet are the uses of 
adversity.’ Rot! A splendid plaster to another person's gish, but 
hot iron to your own. However, if Morse comes in it will be all right 
for you, and, see-saw, down with the aristocracy and up with Hodge 
and his cow. I’m new, so it won’t do for me to be a democrat. 1 
belong to the Primrose League, and I am ordering a primrose skirt. 
Shan’t 1 look lovely? 

Good-bye. Mind, you are to come on the 2nd. 

Your afifectionate sister-in-law, 

‘‘Zenobia Kenwat.” 

Koorali smiled softly as she read Zen’s letter, but her face became 
grave when she finished it. She did not like the suggestion that 
Morse would provide fur them if he should come into power. She 
would rather that their friendship should be without taint of time¬ 
serving or self-interest. It pained her to have it brought home to her 
that when Zen spoke out many others must bo thinking. 

When Morse arrived, the children were having tea in an odd 
excrescence leading off the hall, a queer little room of no particular 
shape, with a deep mullioned window, over which the ivy crept, and 
a panelled mantel-board that lifted up and showed dark cavities once 
used for keeping tinder in, the delight of ,the boys, a store to them of 
fathomless mystery and inexhaustible possibilities of concealment. 

Lance jumped up, crying, “Mr. Morse.” He had caught sight of 
Morse’s tall form passing the windows 

It was Koorali herself who appeared in the open doorway just as he 
stepped within to reach the ancient iron knocker. 

“We are very primitive, you see,” she said, smiling. “We don’t 
indulge in the luxury of bells, and we let our door stand open because 
it is so heavy, and the latch is so huge and clumsy tliat the children 
could not draw it if they tried.” 

Morse admired the thick oak beams studded with immense nails, 
and the rusty iron bars and gigantic key standing in the lock. He 
admired also the low hall, with its oak panelling notched and defaced 
in many places, its dingy ceiling crossed with beams, its massive doors 
opening in all directions, and its stone-flagged floor, on wdiich KooiAli 
had thrown opossum rugs and kangaroo skins. Though simple even 
to bareness, it was ail very picturesque, and it seemed to him in 
keejiing with KoorMi herself. 

“ It puts me in mind of Australia,” she said, “except for the grey 
stone and the oak and the Romans. I must show you the coflins pre¬ 
sently. The kitchen is next this, so we haviii’t far to go for anything 


^^ONE TOUCH LIGHTS UP TWO LAMPSL 143 

we want. And oh, Mr. Morse, there is quite a manorial fireplace in it, 
and a real ingle-nook ! ” 

lie had the same feeling as yesterday, that life was altogether more 
natural and joyous, and that the restraints of conventionality might 
he cast aside. She looked so simple and childlike with her children. 
She brought him into the little room and gave him tea with them. 
She did not summon a servant, but with Miles waited upon him. 
Lance was sent for a fresh cup and plate, she herself went for some 
wonderful strawberry jam, for which the boys had pleaded in honour 
of the guest. They were very merry, with just an undertone of emotion 
running through the merriment. Morse had a pleasant way with 
children. He laughed heartily when Lance gravely asked him whether 
he was really afraid to let the English fight, and if the Queen would 
make him Prime Minister, and repeated Mr. Dobito’s remarks. 

When tea was over Koor^li sent the children away to their play, 
and took him into her sitting-room, which was one of the Georgian 
rooms, and had lofty white-panelled walls, and tall straight windows, 
with window-seats. She had managed to make this like herself too, 
with the bits of drapery flung about, and the Australian weapons and 
skins and pieces of taipa contrasting oddly with the knick-knacks she 
had brought from London and some specimens of Roman pottery ranged 
on the high mantel-shelf. 

Their talk rippled on much as it had done the day before. 

“ I don’t think people get half enough out of life,” Morse said, 

half as much as they might.” 

“ But you surely have got a good deal out of life ? ” Koorkli said, 
looking at him with a kind of wonder. He had seen so much, done 
so much, lived so much. 

Yes, I have got a good deal out of it. I have tried to warm both 
hands before the fire of life.” 

“ That is a good way of putting it. I like that,” Koorkli said 
quickly. 

“ Ii’s not mine; it’s Savage Landor’s. The fire is apt to scorch 
sometimes.” 

“With most people to turn into embers and ashes, I think,” Koorkli 
said, and then wished she had said something else, or said nothing. 

“ Ah ! ” he exclaimed; “ you haven’t much confidence in the 
theory that every one is meant to be happy.” 

She smiled a little sadly. “ I haven’t much confidence in anything. 

I think it all left me when I-” She was going to say, “ when I 

married,” but she did not. She said, “ when I grew to be a woman.” 

“ Why, then ? ” he asked. 

“ I don’t know. Perhaps I had too much confidence before, and 
expected more out of life than I’d any right to.” 

“One has a right to expect a good deal out of life. There ought to 
be material enough in life for eacli of us to have his heart’s desire, 
sooner or later. The worst is, that we most of us make it a ‘too 
Koou ’ or a ‘ too late.’ ” 


144 


“ 77 /^ RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


“Ah, yes,” Kooiali said quickly. 

“ The pieces are all there,” Morse went on, “ but we shake them up 
impatiently, and the right ones can’t by any reasonable possibility be 
got together, and the wrong ones are wedged fast; and it ends in a 
stalemate rather than a checkmate, for the most part.” 

There was a short | ause. Her breath came a little faster. It was 
strange to hear the successful man talk thus, with his melancholy 
metaphor about life’s stalemate. Koorali was seated before a little 
table, on which she leaned with her hands clasped upon it. All the 
time they had been speaking his eyes had been turned away from hers. 
Once or twice he had moved as if he w'ere going to say good-bye, and 
had only remained because of some question or remark from her. 
Suddenly he changed his place, and took a chair opposite her. As he 
did this he bent forward, and by some chance his hand for a second 
touched her clasped hands. His hand was withdrawn in an instant; 
the gesture was merely accidental and unconscious, but the feeling 
which it brought was like that of an electric shock. For an instant 
lie held his breath, as a man might do who fears he has unconsciously 
let out a secret. But with this, too, was a personal sense of surprise 
and dismay ; he had revealed to himself his own secret. That could 
be hidden no longer—fiom him at least. 

When his hand touched hers, Koorali looked up at first a little sur¬ 
prised. Of course she knew that the touch was unconscious, inadver¬ 
tent, accidental, and yet she felt her forehead grow hot, and she bent 
her head as if she would hide some sudden expression of feeling. She 
drew herself back behind a line of mental reserve, and there was a 
moment’s awkward silence. Each felt, each feared that the other 
knew and felt also. Then there was a plunge into talk again, each 
rushing at the opening of a conversation, each apparently trying to 
get the first word. IMorse had, however, quite pulled himself together 
by this time. He had come there with the intention of speaking to 
Koorali on what might be called in very strictness a matter of busi¬ 
ness. Under the fresh charm of the situation and their talk, he had 
put off and off the difficulty he found in approaching it. Now, how¬ 
ever, he was determined that the question must be raised at once. 
Mis own feelings of a moment ago warned him that he must come to 
the business he had in his mind. It would have had to come, in any 
i.ase. He had thought it out for some time, but the warning his 
heart had just given him was only another reason to show that he had 
thought it out to good purpse. So he stopped her rather abruptly in 
a little speech she was beginning on some subject in which she had no 
manner of interest. As he interrupted her he got up and stood with 
his hat in his hand ready to go. 'lire moment he rose K(,)orali rose 
also. She did not know why ; it looked as if she wanted him to go— 
almost seemed ungracious, she thought. 

“ Mrs. Kenway,” he said, “ there’s something I wanted to say to 
you. Our talk yesterday set me thinking about you and your future. 
I don’t know why, unless it w^as because you seemed so contented and 


‘^ONE TOUCH LIGHTS UP TWO LAMP SI 145 


like your real self in this place. I don’t think the life of London 
would ever quite suit you. I fancy that I’ve told you that before, 
liavcn’t I ? I think you might be happier, and that it might be better 
for you and yours, if your husband got an appointment which would 
take you away from Lonilon.” 

He watched her anxiously as he spoke. He saw that she did not 
realize the full import of this tentative suggestion which he had pre- 
I ared so carefully. Her face took the blank chill look that comes over 
the face of a child at the first hint that its holiday must end. 

“ Away ? ” she repeated. “ Out of London ? I don’t know that I 
should care for that, Mr. Morse, though I am very happy here. I am 
afraid that when Crichton comes back, this simple, dull sort of life, and 
my satisfaction with it, will come to an end,” she added, with a rather 
sad little laugh. “There will be so much more needed to make us 
happy—so much that we haven’t got. But if Crichton is fortunate 
enough to get an English appointment, it must be in London.” 

Morse felt a ] ang of pity and tenderness at her half-unconscious 
revelation. “ I suppose,” he said, “ that an appointment out of London 
would mean one out of England. Should you mind that very much ? ” 

She looked up in a startled way, and met his eyes. She saw the 
anxiety in his face, though he spuke in quite unemotional tones. “ I 
—I don’t know,” she said falteringly. I haven’t thought about it 
lately. I am afraid that I take lile too much as it comes, and don’t 
trouble sufficiently about the morrow.” 

“ 1 wish that I could keep you from any need to trouble about the 
morrow,” he exclaimed. Then he went on with insistent emphasis. 
“Just think over this idea of a colonial appointment, Mrs. Ken way— 
that is what I meant—and tell me what your wishes really are. Oddly 
enough, when I got home last night, I found a letter which showed 
me a chance of serving you in that way.” 

He still watched her intently. A faint flush came over KooiAli’s 
lace. She did not answer at once. Then she said in a chilled voice— 

“Mr. Morse, you are very good to us, but I don’t feel as though we 
had any right to be considered. Crichton has no claim-” 

“Oh yes, Mrs. Kenway, your husband has a claim, and he has 
interest, which comes to the same thing. He has gained a reputation, 
and deservedly, for tact and knowledge in colonial affairs. He will 
confer a benefit on his country by his services. That is the way to 
put it. He has more or less identified himself, however, with me and 
my party, and I begin to doubt more and more whether 1 shall be able 
to accept the position which—which, you know, people think I am 
sure to have, and my friends, who expect to see me in such a position, 
might be disappointed. And I think, if your husband would take 
this offer, it would be better in every way. I don’t know if you quite 
understand ? ” 

Oh yes; she quite understood, and she felt ashamed. Morse knew 
that her husband was merely looking to him for an appointment. 
Morse was warning him through her that aTer the elections he might 



‘'^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


146 

rsot be able to do all that Kenway expected. Morse knew also that 
Kenway’s tastes and habits made it better for him to be removed from 
the temptations and ambitions and social competitions and moral 
dangers of a London life. 

“ Yes, I understand,” she said sadly. 

After he had gone, Koorali went into the house.. The children 
came to her before her dinner. Lance was making a boat, and did not 
care to talk or ask questions, but little Miles crept up to her and 
begged that she would read him a story. She did not know what 
it was that made her voice quaver so as she read. Perhaps it was be¬ 
cause the story was a sad one. When she had finished and had put the 
book down, Miles said to her, with his big clear eyes lifted to her face— 

“ Mother, I want you to do something for me.” 

“ What is it, dear ? ” 

“ I want you to tell me about your life. A great many mothers in 
books write the stories of their lives and diflerent things to amuse 
tlieir little children.” 

“ What sort of things? What do you want to know?” 

Oh, everything! What you did when you were a little girl, and 
why you married father, and if he asked you or you asked him.” 

“ You foolish child—women never ask men if they’ll marry them.” 

“ Y'es they do—in leap year—Amelia says so. And I want to know 
if you were happy when you married father, and if you have any great 
secret that you iiave kept all your life.” 

Koorali bent her liead, and laid her cheek upon the boy’s curls. 
“ What great secret could I have. Miles?” 

“Oh, there’s lots—in books. There was one in ‘The Mysterious 
House in Chelsea.’ The lady was in love with another man, and she 
was afraid her husband would come to know it. But Amelia took it 
away from me before I had got half through it. Mother! what’s 
the matter ? ” 

A great drop had fallen on the child’s cheek. Lance broke in— 

“ Miles is always getting hold of Amelia’s books—marrying and love 
and jolly rot. 1 wouldn’t read such stuff. When I’m a man and want 
to get married. I’ll do as father says—go straight to the girl, and say, 
‘Now, what about (he coin?’” 

“ Was that what father said to you, mother? ” said Miles, still in¬ 
quisitive. 

Koorali roused herself. She laughed—a laugh with the sound of 
tears in it. “Lance is quite right. Amelia’s books are not boy’s 
books, and boys should think of cricket and boats, and not of things 
that only older people have to do with. Good night, my children.” 

She ate her lonely dinner, or rather made a pretence of eating it. 
As she was leaving the dining-room, the maid brought in a telegram, 
and waited to see if there was any answer for the messenger to take 
back. Koorali opened the telegram. A strange horrible chill fell 
upon her. It was from Crichton. 

“I return to-moiTow. IMeet train arriving Lyndchester at 3 . 15 .''’ 


^^ONE TOUCH LIGHTS UP TWO LAMPS! 147 


“There is no answer,” Koorali said in a mechanical tone. “Air. 
Kenway is coming to-morrow.” 

The maid went out. For a few moments Koorali stood by the 
table with a dazed frightened look on her face. At last, at last! At 
this moment the full revelation had come upon her. The shock she 
felt at the news of Crichton’s coming told her all. She seemed to grow 
paler and paler, and her dark eyes gazed anxiously into vacancy. 
Ste[)s in the hall biought her to herself. She crushed the telegram in 
her hand ; then, remembering Crichton’s fussy particularity—as even 
in agony some everyday trifle is apt to cross the mind—and fearing 
his anger if any mistake were made as to the hour he had specified, 
she smoothed out the pink paper and placed it on the mantel-piece, 
where it might be referred to if necessary. She did not go back to the 
sitting-room, but crept upstairs to her own bedroom. It was almost 
in darkness. The window was open, and mingled twilight and moon¬ 
light filled it with shadows. A bat flew in and circled, making its 
uncanny noise, and she could hear a corncrako shrieking in the meadow 
below. She stood at the window for a minute or two and looked out. 
The river and the fields were covered with a thick white mist, like a 
grave-cloth. The flame of the furnace opposite was leaidng wildly, 
showing its fierce blaze against a bank of clouds. As she watched, 
an express train trailing fiery smoke swept like a meteor above the 
level of the mist. 

Koorkli shivered and turned aw'ay. She could not bear just now to 
look at this w'eird scene, so unlike any other scene she had ever known. 
Tossing ocean, or desolate stretch of bush or wild headland, might have 
given her a sense of relief and anchorage. She seemed to have lost all 
lamiliar landmarks. She was in a new world of experience, of emotion, 
of dangers that she had never feared before ; a world in which there 
seemed only two realities—her children and this great terrible love. 
For she knew it now. She knew it because of the dread and repulsion 
she had felt on reading her husbands telegram. She might have 
known it long ago had .^he not allowed herself to drift on in fancied 
security, never pausing to think or to analyze her own feelings. Yes ; 
she loved Alorse. This was her secret, the secret no one might shai»t, 
which she must hide guiltily from her boys’ clear eyes as they grew 
old enough to understand ; from her husband—from the world—from 
Lady Betty, sweet, generous La<ly Betty, who had been so frankly 
kind to her—and more clo.sely, uh, far more closely still, from Alorse 
himself; yes, it possible, from Heaven. 

The bat came wheeling nearer to the motionless figure. Koorali 
started at the flapping of its wings near her head. She was very cold, 
but she would not go down to the sitting-room, where were lamps and 
the fire she always liad lighted for company’s sake. She wanted to bo 
quiet and alone, to think it all out. Yet somehow she could not think 
coherently. She could only go beck upon foolish memories—Morse’s 
look sometimes when she found his eyes upon her, and little irrelevant 
things he had sai<i. 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ ~ 


148 

There wns a quaint turret chamber, hardly more than a closet, had¬ 
ing by a llijjht of narrow oak steps I'rom her bedroom. She groped 
her way to a door in the wainscoting, and mounted to the little dim 
])lace, which was bare, and lighted only by the moonbeams creeping 
with difficulty through the ivy tendrils that grew over the tiny wdndow. 
She seated herself as a child might upon the topmost step of the little 
stair, with her form bent forward, and her arms clasped round her 
knees, and her eyes w’idc and staring. 

She sat thus for a long time. This hour recalled to her another 
hour long ago—the hour in wdiich she had first distinctly acknow¬ 
ledged to herself that her husband’s absence w’as ease, his presence 
pain. That discovery had come upon her with a shock as something 
horrible, almost incredible; but the shock had been of a different kind 
from this. She had been able to face it calmly. She had simply 
accepted the fact that her marriage was a fatal mistake—that her lot 
must be lonely, her existence one of passive endurance—that love and 
sympathy were not for her. At least, she had believed life could not 
be complicated by stormy passion. If her thoughts had ever glanced 
towards the one possibility she had most reason to tremble at, she had 
turned them quickly aw’ay, telling herself that this was an impossi¬ 
bility. And now the impossibility had come to pass. She loved with 
the whole strength of her soul a man whom she w’as forbidden to love, 
not only by her own duties as wife and mother, but also by the law’^s 
of friendship and of loyalty between w^oman and w’-oman. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE rRIOKY-ON-THE-WATER. 

Zexobia had taken up her abode at the Priory-on-the-Water with a 
fixed determination to play her part as country matron in becoming 
style. She started with a smiling audacity which was characteristic 
of her. There w-as something rather American in her “ cute ” sim- 
•[dicity. Her experience of this phase of English society was limited. 
When not living with her step-mother, -w^ho, to use Zenobia’s own 
expression, was “ beastly bad form,” she had spent her time in foreign 
hotels. Now she meant to be “ the real thing, and no mistake,” to go 
in for farming, or at any rate, knowing all about it, garden parties, 
county balls, county politics, sport, and anything that occurred to her 
as being suitable to the situation. She set about her task with a good 
deal of enthusiasm, and in a generous spirit. There seemed to her 
something fine and heroic in restoring the Kenways to their ancestral 
home and in refounding the family, so to speak, with her fortune. 
This was her theory. In practice, comfort was her first consideration. 
She intended to make Eustace and herself thoroughly comfortable. 
She thought of Eustace quite as much as of herself. It was a great 
disappointment to find that an old leather arm-chair, an oak bureau 


THE PRIORY-ON-THE-WATEE. 


149 

that might have been in a cottage, and an unlimited supply of cigars 
and French novels, were all that Eustace seemed to require to make 
him happy. She had begun by lining the walls of his study with 
stamped leather of new and fashionable design—a wonderful combina¬ 
tion of old g.hl, browns, and reds; had hung up portieres of imitation 
Gobelin tapestry, and had ordered from Tottenham Court Road the 
most sombrely gorgeous and most complicated modern suite which 
the art of upholsterer could produce for the delectation of amateur 
country gentlemen. Eustace, however, rebelled against the chairs 
which concealed, in their capacious arms and under their stuffing, 
cigarette caskets and ash receptacles, reading-desks, trays and 
tumblers, and other conveniences. He declined the magnificent 
writing-table, with its appliances for reducing literary labour to a 
minimum, and ordered in the old arm-chair and the bureau which 
Zenobia had sent to the lumber-room. 

“ My dear child,” he said to her in his elaborate manner, “ pray 
consult your own taste as regards the rest of the house, and play 
about among the relics as much as you please, but do me the inesti¬ 
mable favour to respect my notions of comfort, which are elementary, 
1 admit. I can’t smoke and go to sleep and enjoy * Richard Omon- 
roy ’ when I’m leaning against new Russian leather that makes me 
smell all the day like a freshly bound Christmas gift-book.” 

Eustace Ken way did not take kindly to the part of country gentle¬ 
man. lie had not his brother’s power of adaptability or his brother’s 
ambition. He could not shoot well, and he thought hunting a great 
deal of trouble for nothing. School boards and petty sessions were 
beyond him, and he did not feel any interest in crops or in short¬ 
horns, and hated young lambs, except with the accompaniments of 
green x>eas and mint sauce. He was very colourless. If he had any 
special tendency, it was in tiie direction of art, but he had always 
been too poor or too lazy to cultivate it. He winced a little at 
Zenobia’s robust and vigorous attacks on life, in which she got all she 
could out of it. It seemed to him like seeing a boxing match. She 
jarred a good deal upon his nerves. He sometimes suggested that 
there was a want of repose in her manners. Her energy appeared to 
him like that of a flail; but it was a point of honour with him not 
to interfere in her way of amusing herself. He did not suppose that 
the country craze would last long, and then, ho concluded, they would 
go to Paris or London, where he could always find enjoyment. !So 
Zenobia, left to her own devices, did play about among the relics. 
She ordered down an army of workmen and upholsterers, and very 
soon effected not a mere change, but rather a radical revolution in the 
appearance of the Priory-on-the-Water. 

Crichton Kenway and his wife did not come on the 2 nd, as Zenobia 
had suggested. Morse’s shooting party took place on the 1st, and 
Crichton was not willing to miss it. He was jiarticularly anxious to 
appear on gootl terms with the coming man, as Morse was considered, 
and then the bachelor party was very pleasant for him. Lord Arden 


150 


“ 77 /^ RIGHT HONOURABLET 


was in it, and the two or three fellows of whom Morse hAd spoken 
turned out to he young politicians of distinction ; men to talk wdth 
about the coming elections. Crichton did not look forward either 
with very great pleasure to visiting his brother in the refurbished 
ancestral home, though he created quite a pretty part for himself as a 
sort of deposed sovereign, joked about the primitive simplicity of the 
Grey Manor, and never let any one lorget that he was the eldest son, 
and should by right be reigning at the Priory. No one took any 
trouble to inquire back into the Ken way genealogy, and, on the whole, 
Crichton made an excellent impression in the county as a capital shot, 
a likely man in the hunting field, and a clever, affable fellow, quite in 
the first rank of society. Altogether it was felt to be a great pity 
that he had not secured the heiress. No one thought much of 
Eustace, who seemed too lazy even to fall off a horse. 

Crichton was asked to dine and sleep at Brornsw’old, and to shoot on 
the following day. Lady Betty had not yet returned, though she was 
expected the next w’eek, and therefore Kooraii was not included in 
the invitation. She had not seen Morse since that night of self- 
revelation. She sometimes wondered within herself how it would be 
possible for her to talk to him ever again in the old, free, unembar¬ 
rassed manner, and w-as glad to think that she w^as going away for a 
little w’hile, and would meet him, if she must meet him, in the Priory 
atmosi here, and not amid tne melancholy, poetic surrounaings of the 
Grey Manor. 

Zenobia drove over on the afternoon of the 2 nd to see her sister-in- 
law. She looked an odd, incongruous figure in her startling French 
costume, as she stood in the bare hall and gazed round her, and then 
at Kooraii, with an expression of sympathetic dismay. So thought 
Arden, who had slipped away from the shooters and had found his way 
along the river to call on Koorhli. 

“Well! I don’t w^onder that you like London best,” said Zenobia 
abruptly, after having drawn a deep breath. 

“Butl don’t think I do like London best,” replied KoorMi, with 
her gentle smile. “ We are very happy here, the boys and I.” 

Zenobia’s high-heeled French shoes clacked on the stone floor as 
she walked round and inspected the dilapidated oak panelling. 

“ I should want a lot of things done to make me comfortable in this 
place,” she said frankly; and one could not help thinking that she was 
on the point of saying, “ bea>tly place.” 

“ What sort of thmgs, Mrs, Eustace Kenway?” asked Lord Arden, 
coming forward. “1 should hke very much to know what would 
make you hapjiy.” 

“Why, Persian carpets and big screens to keep out the draughts, 
and divans and blue china, and pots and pans, don’t you know ? and 
palm-trees, and a man in armour dotted about here and there.” 

“Two or three ancient Komans dug out of the encampment?” 
suggested Arden. “ Have you got any for the Priory, Mrs. Eustac(! ? ” 

“Pve ordeied three Crusaders,” replieei Zen promptly. “I suppose 


THE PRIORY-ON-THE-WATER. 


151 

they ctm be got somewhere—at Whiteley’s, perhaps, don’t yon think? 
My goodness, Koorkli, you do look thin and pale ! Have you been 
ill?” 

The blood rushed to Koorali’s face, mnking it white no longer. The 
cliange in her was indeed noticeable. It had struck Arden the instant 
he saw her, and he had been full of pain and wonder, certain that 
some secret trouble weighed upon her. She was wan,and her features 
seemed sharper, while her eyes had the strained, smarting look which 
betokens tears kept resolutely back. She had suffered much during 
the past few days. Every word and look of Crichton’s had probed her 
wound. He had come home in the mood for endearments, which he 
commanded, rather than entreated, and KoorMi’s repulsion to kisses, 
accepted by her hitherto as a fact in her life to be patiently submitted 
to, had now become keen agony and humiliation. 

Seeing her embarrassment at Zenobia’s abrupt exclamation, Arden 
said, “ I have been telling Mrs. Kenway that I don’t think the river 
mists agree with her.” 

“ She must have a change right away,” said Zenobia with energy, 
and, turning to KoorMi, added, “What day have you and Crichton 
fixed upon V I am very angry with you for putting me off. He could 
have shot at Bromswold just as well from us, couldn’t he now. Lord 
Arden ? ” 

“ We are coming on Monday,” said Koorali. 

“ And you. Lord Arden ? ” continued Zenobia, “ yon and Mr. Morse ? 
You are going to shoot and stop for dinner. The Admiral Nevile- 
Beauchamp is to be with us, and a London masher for Jo. It will be 
a queer kind of party—a little of all sorts. Loudon swells and Steve 
Hobito, yeoman.” 

“ 1 have heard a great deal about Steve Dobito,” said Lord Arden. 
** I particularly want to meet him. He is a man with views.” 

“He is very anxious to improve Mr. Morse’s mind,” said Zenobia, 
“ and so I thought I’d just give him a chance. Eustace and Mrs. 
Nevile said that dinner parties wouldn’t be in his line,” pursued Zen 
reflectively. “I shouldn’t think they were much; but if he wants 
his pudding before his meat, why, he shall have it.” 

“ I don’t know that there is any eternal principle involved in the 
eating one’s meat before one’s pudding,” Arden said reflectively. 

“I think puddings beastly anyhow and anywhere,” Zen affirmed, 
with all the warmth of evident sincerity. “ But you know, Lord 
Arden, it wasn’t that I meant. I only meant that I wanted the poor 
man to have his way. I wasn’t thinking about puddings.” 

“ Dear Zen, I am sure Lord Arden quite understood that you were 
speaking the language of metaphor,” Koorali said, with a compassionate 
smile, poor Zen seemed so eager to vindicate herself. 

“ One don’t want to be thought to be always talking nonsense and 
vulgarity,” Zen pleaded apologetically. 

“ You always talk very good sense,” Lord Arden said gravely, and 
with a determined effort to break through his habitual shyness, and 


152 


^^'HE RIGHT honourable:' 


say exactly what he felt and what he wanted to say, “ and there never 
could be vi.lgarity where there is no aflfectation.” 

“Come, now, ain’t that nice? ” Zen said, and a dash of colour came 
into her face. In truth, Lord Arden saw as clearly as Koorali did the 
truthfulness, the womanliness, underneath that Parisian bodice; the 
shrewd honest good sense in that little black cropped head, and which 
all Zen’s own ivory brushes, and all the ivory brushes “brandished” 
by Disraeli’s duchesses, could not scrub out of it. 

Koorali lelt a little vague enthusiasm as they approached the Priory 
on tli£ appointed day. She glanced at her husband as they drove up 
the village street, to see if the place awakened old memories. She 
could have felt much sympathy with him in such a mood. But he 
was leaning back in the carriage looking sullen and perplexed. She 
seemed to know by a sort of flashing instinct that he was weighing 
the for and against Morse’s accession to power, and speculating with 
an absolutely concentrated regard to his own interest whetlier it 
might not be wiser to accept the proverbial “ bird in the hand,” than 
to wait for the problematical “ two in the bush.” To her surprise he 
did not seem to know how to direct the coachman when the latter 
appealed to him, and they were obliged to ask the way to the Priory 
of an old man by the roadside. 

“ I suppose that you were very young when you went away from the 
place?” she said, wondering a little, for she had often heard him speak 
of his “ old home.” 

“ My father left it before I was born,” he answered shortly. There 
was silence again, and she had no remark to make on the quaint arched 
gateway with a grey stone pigeon-cote on either side. 

The house was an imposing structure, a massive pile, with two 
wings forming stables and offices, connected with the main building by 
high battlemented walls. These were curved, so that the whole block 
was in the shape of a semicircle with a gigantic yew hedge, cut into 
]iyramids and turrets, at its base. The pride of the Priory lay in its 
yew hedges and in the terraced garden at the back. This could be 
seen easily as the carriage wound up a gentle slope, for here the Lynde 
valley narrowed, and on one side the ground rose higher than is usual 
in that flat county. Three broad terraces built up with stone led 
down to the river. ’J'he massive walls were buttressed, each buttress 
sumiounted by a weather-beaten statue. In the embrasures, great 
trees of myrtle and magnolia flourished, and there were quaint borders 
like the border at the mill, and scarred steps and balustrades, and 
a rose garden where the rose bushes were not stiff straight standards, 
but wandered at their sw^eet will. Upon none of these things had 
Zenobia yet had time to lay the desolating hands of reform. 

The drive swept to the front of the house within the yew hedge, and 
round a smooth stretch of lawn that had once been a"bowling-green. 
An ancient sun-dial stood opposite the hall door. Tlie building was 
of the famous grey stone, but disfigured as far as the natural veining 
and pallid hue would permit, for Zen, in her ardour for cleanliness. 


THE PRIOR Y-ON-THE^WA TEE. 


153 

had scraped off the reddish brown lichen, had pruned away the ivy 
and clematis, and had ruthlessly uprooted the seedlings which the 
birds had sown in the crannies and on the tops of the old" walls. 

Two powdered footmen threw open the doors. There was a sotind 
of voices and laughter as they were led into the large inner hall, which 
looked comfortable indeed, and picturesque, notwithstanding its oddi 
jumble of the traditional and the essentially modern—of the Pala s 
Ivoyal and Plessis-les-Tours, and though the saucy little tables, the 
downy chairs, the gorgeous divans in Persian tapestry, the glowing 
carpets of velvet pile, the tambourines painted after Van Beers, and 
the porcelain monkeys hanging on to the screens, seemed at variance 
with the groined ceiling, the Gothic arches of the oak staircase, and 
the carved mantel with its coat of arms, which Zen firmly believed m 
be the rightful trophy of the Kenways. 

The gentlemen had come in from shooting. Morse, looking very 
stately and handsome and somehow unlike himself in his rough gear, 
stood by the fireplace talking to Eustace, who was twirling a cigarette 
between his delicate fingers. Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp, in a Piedfern 
costume, which subtly combined the aisthetic and the rural, and the 
most exquisite leather boots crossed in an attitude that revealed a 
modest isthmus of scarlet silk stocking, lounged on one of the divans. 
Miss Jo, very demure and sleek, made tea, w'ith the Admiral and the 
well-got-up and extremely talkative “masher” in attendance. Zen 
herself, was seated upon a plusli pouf, which was a triumph of Parisian 
art. It was intended to represent a large toadstool in the natural 
sickly yellow, and had green satin frogs clustering round the stem. 
She herself looked as incongruous as the toadstool, her health}’- brown 
British face, her curly black crop, her square shoulders and substantial 
limbs being very much out of keeping with her French tea-gown ot 
old gold plush, elaborately adorned with cascades of lace—a garmenf 
that Sarah Bernhardt might hav'e appropriately worn in “ Frou-Frou,” 
and with her high-heeled embroidered sWs and old gold stockings. 

There was a flutter among the group as Koorali and her husband 
entered. Eustace languidly greeted his brother, and Zen embraced 
her sister-in-law with efi'usion. Morse did not at once come forw’ard, 
but Kooiali had seen him the instant her glance swept the room. As 
he looked at the little face framed by a black hat with drooping 
feathers, he fancied that the slender form round which her soft dark 
draperies hung, it seemed to him like the draperies of no other woman, 
was even slenderer and more fragile than when he had last seen it not 
many days ago. 

Some women, though they may be insignificant of stature, unasser¬ 
tive and absolutely unconscious of any wish to make an effect, aie 
given, in recompense, a certain magnetic power of arresting and absorb¬ 
ing attention. As Koorali stood and untwisted the lace scarf from her 
throat, she was, for the moment, the one object of interest to every 
eye in the room. It was as though the chief actress in the drama had 
appeared suddenly on the scene. There was about KooiAli that sug- 
11 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


154 

gestion of tragic story, lived through or yet to come, that mark of 
Destiny’s cross, which one sees now and again in the face and form of 
man or woman, which is so unmistakable and so hard to explain or 
describe. 

Morse shook hands gravely, almost silently, with KoorMi, and then 
drew back. Arden pushed forward a chair. Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp 
made her proper little speech, and the “ masher,” Mr. Erie, changed 
the tap of his conversation from lawn tennis to Lord and Lady Beau¬ 
mont’s place in the Highlands, where he had expected to meet Koorali. 
He had once taken her down to dinner at their house in London. 

Mr. Erie was a young man rich in conversational resources. He 
was in diplomacy, and was making fair progress, chiefly by virtue of 
his resolve always to talk on the right subject to the right person. He 
had just come from Copenhagen, and had ambitious hope of Washing¬ 
ton. Koorali was not long in observing that he had the proper tap of 
conversation always ready to turn on. He had chaff for Zen ; he 
talked politics with a subdued deferential air when he was speaking to 
Morse; the air of one who says, “ I know my future master; 1 may 
offer my meek suggestions, but of course I await his commands ; ” he 
conversed of hunting and old county families to Crichton, and thereby 
secured at once the good opinion of that scion of ancient line. He 
angled about a good deal with Koorali, not being quite certain where 
to have her. He tricid high life, because he understood that she was 
a friend of Lady Betty Morse; and then he tried Bohemia; and neither 
was successful, as he could see at a glance. Then he ventured on 
views of life itself; and after a while was lucky enough to have the 
conversation interrupted. 

“ You see w’e arc refreshing ourselves,” said Zenobia, in her abrupt 
voice. “ Will you have some tea, or some sherry and bitters ? ” 

Koorali shook her head at the sherry and bitters, and asked for tea, 
which Morse brought her, and a few commonplaces were exchanged 
about the drive and the relative distance of Bromswold and the Grey 
Manor. Kooriili’s voice was constrained. 

“ I beg to state that I am not drinking sherry and bitters because I 
like such stuff,” continued Zen, “ but because I’ve had neuralgia all 
day. It’s nerves. Eustace thinks I haven’t any right to have nerves. 
I’ve bought them from Jo—haven’t I Jo? She’s a Nt-vile-Beauchamp, 
and can spare them.” 

Eustace looked annoyed, and Crichton put in with a cheerful laugh— 

“ By Jove, if you want to make that sort of investment, my wife is 
the person to apply to.” 

“ We’ve been in a muddle,” said Zen. “ Haven’t we, Jo ? The fur¬ 
niture people have only just gone away. I’m going to show you my 
diggings presently ; 1 think they’ll do. I have been having a battle 
with Mr. Morse,” she went on in her discursive fashion, “ because I’m 
a Conservative, and I’ve joined the Primrose League. Are you a 
Liberator a Conservative, Koorali? Will you give mo your name? 
If 1 can get thirteen names, I can have the lAiory made into a ‘ habi- 


THE PRIORY-ON-THE~WATER. 


155 

tation,’ and then I shall get asked to such a lot of lovely functions. 
Mr. Morse, if you’d have a Republican League, and Lady Betty would 
start a pretty costume for it—say crowns and sceptres up^^ide down, 
done in gold embroidery on an eau de Ril ground—something newer 
and more decided than primroses, I think I’d join your party and 
become a Radical.” 

There was a general laugh. Every one knew Lady Betty’s royalist 
devotion. Morse laughed too; he never lost his sense of humour. 
Zenobia distinguished herself by some more remarks in the same strain. 

“Come, Mrs. Kenway, is that your notion of political morality?” 
said Lord Arden, turning to her with a serio-comic expression. There 
is no doubt that the tailor who invented the primrose skirt will be an 
influence in deciding the elections. The Admiral is grieved. He spent 
some time, while we were waiting at Dingle Corner for tfie Irish stew 
to arrive, in trying to persuade me that women were worthy of a vote, 
and you contradict all his arguments by insisting on being frivolous.” 

“ No! Really! ” exclaimed bland Mr. Nevile-Beauchamp—he of the 
drawl; Zen called him the “ Interjectional Inquirer,” because he never 
opened his mouth except to utter an ejaculation or to ask a question. 

“ Ought women to have a vote? ” 

“ 1 tell you what converted me,” said the Admiral, a short man with 
a snarling voice and goggle eyes like those of a pug. “ I was once stay¬ 
ing in a country house where there were five men and seven ladies. 
I'he Channel tunnel question came under our quarter. 'J'he men, with 
the exception of myself, were for it. The ladies voted with me against 
it. Now, women are always sick.” 

“ What ? ” asked the Inquirer, bending forward. He was a little deaf. . 

“ Sick—sea-sick, don’t you know,” said the Admiral shortly. “ The 
only argument I can see in favour of the tunnel is that it saves the 
crossing for people who get sick. Now, I said to myself, if women, 
who arc always sea-sick, can be so disinterested in this one question, 
they are capable of having a voice in others ; and that’s how they got 
me round.” 

Mrs. Ncvile-Beauchamp purred her contribution to the conversation 
in her thin staccato voice, with her chin poked forward. The Admiral 
was quite in the wrong. He knew nothing at all about it. She was 
quite sure that no one nice could ever want women to have votes. 
She had been staying with a certain “ Balloch ” and “ Lady Harriet.” 
Lady Harriet was quite, quite crazy on “ woman’s rights.” She won¬ 
dered how any one could make a friend of Lady Harriet, who was 
certainly “very smart,” but quite the ugliest woman and so strong- 
minded ! 

“ I don’t want to put women into Parliament,” said Zen. “ I think 
there are lots of things more interesting than that. In fact, I think 
the primrose people beastly slow, nearly as bad as my guardians. I 
should like to make something happen to me. Nothing has ever 
happened to me in my life, except getting married. I’ve got no line 
of fate. If you look at my hand, you’ll see.” 


^‘THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


156 

There was something comically wistful in her expression as she held 
out her square palm. Mr. Erie took it in his, and turned on the tap 
of chiromancy. Eustace rose. Zen looked at him. 

*‘What are you beckoning to the Admiral for?” she asked. “ Where 
are you going to take him and Mr. Morse?” 

“ We are going to play billiards. Come, Crichton.” 

The Admiral and Crichton followed him, also Mr. Nevile-Beau- 
champ. Morse remained. 

Zen’s face flushed a little, and she heaved a petulant sigh as the 
door closed behind them. “ That’s Eustace’s polite way of letting me 
know that my conversation bores him. Well, we’ve got rid of the 
husbands, any way, that’s one comfort. Thee must be a reaction, 
you know; flesh and blood can’t stand it. You can’t always keep 
your loins girt and your lamps burning.” 

Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp took up her crewel work in a protesting 
manner. Lord Arden laughed. 

“ Y'our views on matrimony are not any more encouraging than 
your political opinions, ]\Irs. Eustace.” 

“Well,” returned Zen, frankly, “I don’t know why girls are such 
blessed fools as to marry ; do you, Koorali ? Some of them do it for 
a trousseau and to be independent of their guardians, and they’re given 
very small change for their money. I'hal’s all 1 can say. The man 
gets everything, and the woman gets nothing except snubbing—unless 
.she’s a c—cat,” and Zen stole a side glance at the Admiral’s wife. 

“The man gets everything?” repeated Lord Arden. “Let us con¬ 
sider the question. It’s a very interesting one—to me, as a bachelor, 
at any rate. Let us see—what does the average man gain by marriage 
in com[)arison with the average woman ? ” 

“ A home,” sententiously observed Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp. 

“ From which he is supposed to absent himself between breakfast 
and dinner,” Lord Arden said. 

“There’s no place like home,” said Zen sentimentally; and then 
locovering added, “So the husband seems to think, and that’s why he 
bkes any other place better.” 

“ But come—what does the average man get by marriage ? ” Lord 
Arden persisted. 

“The right to flirt without danger of an action for breach of 
promise,” said Mr. Erie. 

“ But with the danger of a jolly good wigging from his wife,” said 
Zen. 

“I have heard it declared,” Morse observed, “ that he gets, if he is 
lucky, illusion converted into delusion. But that isn’t my definition.” 

“ Can’t we have Lord Arden’s own views? ” Koorali asked. 

“The man falls into bondage,” said Lord Arden. “The woman 
emancipates herself. Here’s a case. Take a girl—one of three or four 
sisters—who has been out several seasons. Other sisters are coming 
on. Dressing up has got to be a bore. She is tired of standing in the 
market. She marries. There is no further necessity to dress up, for 


THE PRIORY-ON-THE-WATER, 


157 

a practical end. She has got her promotion. She has got her liberty. 
She can go to the theatre with a pleasant little party of men and 
women, and sup at the Orleans, without her husband. She has got 
pin-money, settlements, new dresses, and a house of her own. \Ve 
needn’t mention love. I suppose that passes.” 

“My! ain’t we cynical!” Zen exclaimed. “What wisdom to be 
sure! Haven’t we studied the question, to be sure? Bachelors’ wives 
and maids’ children are well managed, we all know ! ” 

“Women are narrow,” pursued Arden composedly. “They only 
care for their own occupations. They don’t take the trouble to grasp 
their husband’s interests. The husband goes home. What does he 
find ? A stupid wife who can’t or won’t talk to him on his subjects. 
Ten to one she is dying to go out and show off a new dress. She ain’t 
contented to go out alone. She wants her husband—not for the 
pleasure of his society, but because she wants him to bring her home 
again. And supposing that they go in for a domestic evening, two 
armchairs by the fire and so forth. He sits down in one. Then, as 
I said, what is there to talk about ? There soon comes this sort of 
feeling,” and he comically drew his hand across his throat. 

“ I don’t know anything about it,” said Morse with an air of forced 
gaiety. “Betty and I never get a chance of an evening to ourselves. 
Never shall, I suppose. I don’t know what you are talking about.” 

“ There’s something in what Arden says,” exclaimed Mr. Erie, who 
seemed impressed by the view of the question. “ Why do we marry ? 
Because we are fools. Mrs. Eustace Ken way is right. It’s like duck 
shooting. See what one goes through for the sake of one duck—and 
when you’ve got him! It’s the same thing. I fall in love. I propose. 
Why? She is wearing a colour I admire, or we’ve been dancing 
together to a waltz I like, or I’ve got a little too much champagne on 
board!” 

“ We haven’t heard a word of Mrs. Crichton Kenway’s views on the 
great matrimonial question, and the relative gains and losses of man 
and woman,” Arden suggested. 

Morse was drawing out of the conversation, but he checked himself 
now, and he looked at Koorkli, who started a little and saw that all 
eyes were on her. 

“ Oh, please leave me out,” she pleaded, quite earnestly. “ I don’t 
even speak the language.” 

“My dear, what nonsense!” Zenobia cried. “Whatever do you 
mean ? ” 

“I don’t understand,” Arden said. 

“ I do,” said Morse. “ Quite.” 


158 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE? 


CHAPTER XIX. 

“too early seen unknown, and known too late. 

Yes, he understood her, quite. He knew exactly all the meaning of 
her words; and he thought the simple words expressed her meaning 
with precision and fulness. She did not speak the language of London 
society, on that serious, sad question of man and woman’s association. 
She was made to he happy and to give out happiness; and Morse 
knew too well that she was not happy. She was made to be the fond, 
devoted wife of a true-hearted husband, to whom she could turn with 
eyes of love, to whom she could look up with generous admiration. 
The marriage question could hardly seem to her all jocular. Morse 
began to find that he was all unconsciously growing to understand her 
but too well. He began to find that he was getting into the way of 
turning his eyes on her and waiting with deep interest for what she 
was to sa}’’. This had been going on with him for some time indeed, 
but he was now beginning to grow conscious of it. He found himself 
watching over her life, if one might put it in that way. She began to 
occupy a large spreading space in his thoughts. This troubled him, 
although there was a sweetness in it too for the over-busy much pre¬ 
occupied statesman. 

Koorali’s protestation of her inability to speak the language and 
Morse’s declaration that he understood what she meant, put a stop 
to the discussion on the relative advantages of matrimony to man 
and man’s mate. The tea-drinking was over; the little group was at 
liberty to disperse. 

The open air was tempting to most of the guests. Mr. Erie went 
with Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp into the conservatory to get some 
stephanotis; Morse and KoorMi found themselves alone on the lower 
terrace. They walked up and down slowly. It was very still and 
peaceful here, and the air was full of the fragrance of myrtle and 
late roses. 

A dream-like sense of content stole over Koorali. “ I will be 
happy,” she seemed to be whispering to herself, and her heart went on 
speaking while they paced almost the length of the terrace in silence. 
“ Why should I not be glad that I am near him ? Why should I be 
•afraid? A woman has not any need to be afraid when she has to deal 
with a man like him. I am not afraid or ashamed, now. There 
would be shame if he were not the most loyal man who lives. He is 
the truest and the most loyal. I know him and I honour him. I could 
kx)k into his eyes as he might look into mine, without a shadow of 
shame, for our souls would understand each other.” 

Thinking of this, she did turn her dark, melancholy eyes towards 
him. His were downcast. She had never before seen him so grave. 
There was a curious expression on his face—a look stern, pure, and 
resolute, yet unutterably sad. Before she could turn her eyes away 


EARLY SEEN UNKNOWN: 


^59 


lie looked suddenly round, as if he had become conscious of her gaze 
and of her thoughts. Their eyes met. His look seemed for one 
moment to cling to hers, as if he were dumbly beseeching her pardon, 
dumbly assuring her that she might rely on him to be silent and loyal. 
In that instant their souls faced each other fairly. They wore no 
longer groping in darkness. Then they both looked away. The 
sense of nearness to him which she felt was a rush of joy. Of course 
he would never tell her what was in his heart. This she knew, as 
she knew her own heart. He would never tell her that he loved her. 
He would never ask her if she loved him. A naked sword was placed 
between them, like that which the youth Aladdin in the Arabian tale 
set with his own hand between him and the princess he adored. 
Kooi^li knew that in word and deed they would be no more to each 
than the merest acquaintances—less than friends. It might indeed 
be that this was their farewell. But no matter. They knew. At the 
moment there was one and the same picture before the mind and 
memory of each—that parting scene in Australian waters and the 
Australian dawn, long ago. 

Koorali’s lips parted in a long sigh. For a moment or two she 
hardly knew where she was, or what had happened to her. She was 
back in the Australian dawn. 

Presently Morse sjioke in a deep moved voice. “ We understand each 
other ; there is nothing more to say ; now or at any other time. It’s 
a great misfortune. We have got to bear it.” 

“Yes,” she answered simply; and then the woman in her spoke. 
“ Still, I am glad to know,” she said; and there was silence again. 

“ KooiYli,” Morse said abruptly. The sound of her Christian name, 
which he so seldom uttered, thrilled her with a sense of delight— 
all the more perhaps because the emotion in it was held so deter¬ 
minedly in check. “ There is something else I do want to talk about. 
I asked you to think over the idea of a colonial appointment for your 
husband. I had one in view', and yesterday I heard again from Lord 
Coulmont, in whose gift it is. Your husband may have the offer of a 
governorship in Farnesia, one of the newly annexed islands. It is the 
governorship of all the islands, in fact. Coulmont authorizes me to 
speak to him. I could not do so till I had spoken to you again; but 
I ought to write to him to-morrow. We are political enemies, but we 
are personal friends, and he has promised me.” 

KoorMi was silent, her lips pressed tightly together, her eyes down¬ 
cast, in deep thought. He could see that her face, under the shadow 
of her black feathers, had got very white. 

“ The climate is fairly good,” Morse continued in the same level 
tones, “ more healthy than that of South Britain. I once spent a few 
weeks there. The society is fairly good also; and there is capital 
shooting and a summer residence in the hills. There would be plenty 
to do of a pleasant kind. I think your husband w'ould like it. And 
for you ”—his voice changed suddenly—“ it would, perhaps, be 
better.” 


i6o ^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 

Still Kuur'ili did not turn towards him or speak. She was afraid 
to speak. She felt that if she tried to raise her voice she must break 
down. 

“There is the alternative of trusting to what I can do for you in 
England,” Morse said. “ You won’t mind my speaking so frankly? 
I know that Mr. Kenway depended more or less on the South Biitain 
Government, and that he has no great private fortune.” 

Koorali shook her head. She seemed to wish to speak, but the 
words did not come. He saw that she was suffering. 

“ There is one thing I implore you to take into your mind and your 
heart,” he said earnestly. “ In any way that I can serve you, I have 
a right to do so. Don’t you know there are bonds, relationships, in 
which that is the only right which can be claimed, and which ought 
not to be denied ? ” He waited a moment, and then went on. “ Alter 
the elections, it may be in my power to help my friends, but there 
is no certainty about it. The political situation may be such that 
with my convictions I may be unable to accept responsibility even if 
it is thrust upon me. If war takes place, I should be practically 
powerless—for a time. If, on the other hand, the war party is in the 
minority—well, I must come into office. But I don’t think that 
likely, in the least. I am bound in justice to put this view of the case 
before your husband. His own judgment will guide him, and perhaps 
\ our influence.” 

Koorali spoke out now, and answered steadily. “ I will ask him—I 
will beg him to accept the appointment and take me out of England.” 

The strained look on Morse’s face relaxed. Her decision was 
evidently a relief to him. 

“Tell me that 1 am right,” Koorkli said, and there was a passionate 
trembling in her voice. “Tell me that you think it will be better for 
me to go away. Tell me that you’d rather-” 

She stopped suddenly, stirred by the expression of his face to a feel¬ 
ing of the keenest self-abasement. How could she dare to make duty 
more difficult to him and to herself? His face told her what he was 
suffering. It might have been cut out of iron but for the eyes; and 
the intense pity, the struggling tenderness, the deep anguish in them, 
were almost more than she could bear. Neither spoke for some 
moments. She knew that in this forced self-repression lay his only 
strength. She stopped abruptly in her walk. 

“No,” she exclaimed, “I won’t ask you—anything—except to help 
me to go away. I’m glad to think you can help me to do that. You 
will speak to Crichton to-night? You will urge him, for his own 
sake, to take what Lord Coulmont offers you. Oh yes, I know—I 
know how good you are—how true. If he refuses, then I will beg 
him to take it—for my sake.” 

Then she moved aw^ay. He joined her, and they mounted the stone 
steps without a w'ord. When they had reached the upper terrace, she 
stood fur a minute leaning against the time-worn balustrade, as if to 
take breath or to nerve herself before going into the w'orld again. She 



“TOO EARLY SEEN UNKNOWNS i6i 

leaned over the ivy-grown railing, a fragile little black figure, her 
head turned away from him, her clnn upraised. The sun had set, but 
her face was outlined against the red glow that shone across the river. 
He saw the muscles in the slender throat quivering, and the groat 
dark eyes grow larger and fuller, as though tears vvere welling in them. 
All at once, she made a sudden movement, and faced him with bright, 
dilated eyes, and lips hardened into a conventional smile. Her little 
laugh rang out clearly. She had taken up her part again, and the 
thought translated itself into w'ords. 

“ I don’t think that I’m a person who goes in for theatrical effect,” 
she said lightly; “but what strikes me most about England, in con¬ 
trast to Australia, is that it’s dramatic. People group themselves well, 
and the background is nearly always appropriate to the varied situa¬ 
tions of civilized life.” 

“ Are you thinking that Mrs. Eustace has managed some effective 
grouping ? ” he asked, falling into her mood with an effort. 

“It’s always the same,” she said. “I have been haunted, almost 
ever since I came to England, by an odd fancy that the curtain would 
fall directly. This is like a scei]^ in a play—one might imagine the 
footlights down there,” and she pointed towards the river—“a play 
we saw this season; do you remember? There was a terraced garden, 
in the second act, and there was just the right alternation of pretty 
drawing-room comedy and of emotional interest. It was very pretty, 
and it was very like real life—the afternoon tea, and the dresses, like 
Zen’s; and the smart things that were said, and the tragedy wliich 
had the stage all to itself when the right time came. But no one 
ever forgot to say clever things, and the women always took care that 
iheir draperies fell becomingly.” 

She paused, but Morse did not laugh or make any jesting remark. 
She drew herself away from the balustrade. 

“ I wonder if you could reach one or two of those roses,” she said, 
j-Kjinting to a cluster of Marechal Kiel, which hung from the wall close 
to where they stood. “ I should like to wear them to-night, if you 
will gather them for me.” 

lie did as she asked, and gave the roses to her. As she held out 
her hands, he saw that they were trembling. She clasped the flowers 
tightly. 

“ Thank you,” she said. “ You see, I am like the people in the 
play. There’s alwaj’^s the dressing up to be thought of. And the 
curtain will fall on me—on this sort of life, at any rate, if Crichton 
goes to the islands—what are they called ? 1 must make the most of 

what opportunities arc left me to be brilliant and worldly.” 

Her laugh, in which there was a false uncertain note, smote him to 
the very soul. He felt at that moment as one might feel who saw his 
best-beloved child suffering from a blow he had unknowingly dealt. 
She was so like a child still. She went into the house with her roses, 
and he loitered on the terrace for a few minutes. Then the dressing- 
gong summoned him ali?o within. 


i'S2 «J///i RIGHT honourable:' 


CHAPTER XX. 

MR. DOBITO ADMO^■ISIIES NATIONS. 

Koorali came down to dinner in a dress which had been designed for 
her by a royal academician, and which had created quite a sensation 
at the great London party where she liad first worn it. Jt was a 
wonderful arrangement of rich, clinging Eastern stuff, of a pale yellow, 
and heavy gold embroidery; and it was fashioned in a manner quite 
different from that of any modern garment. The draperies hung with 
that grace for which the Australian beauty was much celebrated. No 
stiffened bodice disfigured her form, but an embroidered scarf was 
cunningly twisted round and round her bust, tlie white neck and 
slender throat clasped by a band of gold rising above its folds, the arms 
showing bare to the shoulders. She wore Morse’s roses at her waist. 
There was something striking and original about the dress. It had 
been very much admired and quoted, and it harmonized with her clear 
paleness, her delicate features, and deep dark eyes. There was no 
particular reason why she should wear it upon this occasion, except 
that it seemed somehow to suit her mood and to signalize the closing 
of a chapter in her life. 

Perhaps she had never been less herself than upon this evening. 
She was not given to saying hard, brilliant things, or indeed to talking 
much in general company. To-night, however, she talked a great 
deal, and laughed and made keen little speeches, which hurt Morse 
like the thrusts of a knife. He understood so well what she intended 
that he should understand ; and more. It was a poor, pitiful piece of 
bravery. 

Crichton was pleased in his malign, self-glorifying way. He was 
anxious that the impression she had made ujwn Morse should be 
deepened during Lady Betty’s absence. He had a nervous dread of 
Lady Betty’s interference. He watched Morse with the eyes of a 
tracker, and saw that he was preoccupied, and that he constantly 
looked at KooiAli. Crichton interpreted these looks by smoking- 
room theories. He himself only knew one manner of admiring a 
pretty woman. He was not displeased. He meant to work Morse’s 
admiration to his own advantage. He also admired KoorMi iit that 
dress and in that mood. 

Zen was very gorgeous. She twinkled with diamonds and silver 
embroide^3^ Her train was of brocade, with fleurs-de-lis upon it, 
outlined in silver thread. Her shoes glistened like Cinderella’s glass 
slippers, only they were much larger. She awed and delighted Mr. 
Dobito, who duly made his appearance, clad in checked trousers, a 
long blue coat with brass buttons, and a high collar and neckcloth 
in good old stjde. Mrs. Nevile-Beauchamp thought that he looked 
singularly out of place in Zen’s magnificent pale yellow drawing-room. 
She thought the fox terrier out of place too, when it was brought to be 


MR. DOBITO ADMONISHES NATIONS. i6j 

cxhil-itcd. But soon she saw that a great county lady, who was Zen's 
neighbour and a guest this evening, delighted in the fox terrier, asking 
many questions as to its bterd and capabilities, and was on most 
intimate teims with Mr. Dohito. So she changed her mind, and 
whispered to Mr. Erie that it was really very picturesque. 

The dinner w'as over; the women had gone into the drawdng-room. 
Mr. Dohito was not sorry. He W'as of Dr. Johnson’s way of thinking. 
He liked to fold his legs and have his talk out, and one could not well 
have his talk out where there were ladies. They w^ould expect to be 
allow'ed their say too; and then they would contradict; and they 
w’ould not understand. . A wise man docs not talk to women, though 
he may sometimes condescend to talk at them. Mr. Dobito was a 
very wise man. He was really very clever, shrewd, and sound; but 
he loved to hear himself talk, and he indulged in paradox to show how 
clever he w’as. He had been taught by his own class to consider him¬ 
self an oracle. The gentry of the county admired his shrew'd sense, his 
thorough honesty, and his straight riding in the hunting-field, and 
they were amused by his oddities and indulged them. This evening 
IMr. Dobito was very happy. He had been brought to talk to Mr. 
Morse and Lord Arden, and he meant to justify his reputation. He 
admired Morse; thought Morse and he w^ere the twJ really able men 
in the country; considered Morse almost equal to himself in natural 
capacity, but w’anting of course in years and experience. 

The claret was passed round. Mr. Dobito smiled condescendingly 
at it, but -would have none of it. “ No, thank you, Mr. Kenway. 
None of your new-fangled rubbish for me. They used to say Twere 
only Frenchies that drank claret, and that was because they were not 
brought up to anything letter. I’ll stick to the port.” 

He stuck to the port, which he found excellent, which was excellent. 
Cigarettes w^ere lighted. Of course hunting had been discussed, as w^as 
natural in Lyndfordshire, but Mr. Dobito oracularly closed that subject. 

“ Hunting is a very good sport for him as knows his country and 
knows his nag; but for a middling rider and a middling nag, why, I 
say there isn’t much in it. And that’s the truth.” 

Then came some talk of the foreshadowed -war. Mr. Dobito was 
entirely with Morse on that subject. War would simply ruin the 
farmers he declared; they only wanted that on the top of the abomin¬ 
able strikes and holidays, and the extra burdens. Admiral Nevile- 
Bcauchamp -was against war on a different ground, concerning which 
also Morse agreed with him. We were not prepared, the gallant 
Admiral held. “Our ships won’t float, sir; our guns would burst; 
the short-service has played the devil with the red-jackets.” 

Eustace fixed his eye-glass, and was languidly for battle. “ Heard 
all that sort of thing before, you know; always hearing it. You 
sailors and soldiers are always grumbling; bad as the farmers. Give 
Englishmen a chance of fighting, and they’ll show you they can lick 
the*^foreigners yet—against any odds, by Jove!” ’Jhen he dropped 
his eye-glass, having settled the question. He dropped his eye-glass. 


“r//^ RIGHT HONOUR ABLET 


164 

as the owner of a castle might drop the portcullis in the brave days of 
old to signify that he could hold no further parley. 

“Fighting the foreigner means starving the farmer,” said Mr. Dobito. 
“They don’t all believe that. I heard a farmer say that what we 
wanted was a good old war like the Crimean war, when wheat went 
over a hundred shillings a quarter. But you know, sir ”—Mr. Dobito’s 
voice became deep and emphatic—“there’s bound to be what my 
learned friend ’ud call a reaction ; and I mind when wheat went down 
—after that very war—down as low as my boots.” 

“The burdens on the farmer are increasing, I suppose, Mr. Fobito?” 
Lord Arden struck in. 

This gave Mr. Dobito his chance. His time had come, and he knew 
it. Now he was going to talk. He stretched out his long legs, took 
another glass of port, then put his hands into his pockets and surveyed 
the company with the wise man’s tranquil and superior smile. Then 
he began— 

“Burdens on the farmer increasing, my Lord? Yes, I should think 
they were. I am glad you put that question while Mr. Morse is here. 
To-morrow or next day he may be—well, the master of the hounds let 
us say ; the Westminster Parliament pack.” And Mr. Dobito smiled 
at his own humour. “Now I am going to give you a little ditty in 
prose. I’m going to tell you all about the burdens which we poor 
farmers have to carry on our backs now, and which we hadn’t to bear 
when I began to exist, nor for many years after. A gentleman like 
my learned friend Mr. Morse here ”—Mr. Dobito considered it only 
becoming to speak thus respectfully of a possible Prime Minister— 
“ like my learned friend Mr. Morse here, wants to get to the right side 
of affairs, let us suppose-” 

“ The head of affairs?” Mr. Erie murmured, with a bland tentative 
suggestion of a joke. On ne rit as the French parliamentary 
reports were occasionally in the habit of saying when an orator’s 
attempted pleasantry in the Chamber missed fire. Mr. Dobito frowned ; 
not at the jest, but at the interruption. 

“ At the right side of affairs,” ]\Ir. Dobito went on with a certain 
sternness of manner, calculated to discourage further interruption, 
“ Well, what do I do? I stick him up at my gate, and put somebody 
by his side who knows all the people hereabouts and the ways of the 
place. At nine o’clock, not before, they begin to pass along. First 
you see a very decent-looking man, with a clerical sort of appearance; 
he wears a long black coat, a waistcoat a little open, showing a neat, 
well-starched shirt.” Mr. Dobito’s long upper lip lengthened, and he 
expanded his chest and stroked the long loose ends of his crimped 
neckcloth. “ And he has a pair of very respectable gloves. ‘ Who is 
this?* says my learned friend.” 

Mr. Dobito paused, and waved his hand as if it held a pipe and w^ere 
pointing with the stem to the imaginary passer-by. 

No one of course presumed to anticipate the answer, Mr. Dobito 
went on— 


MR, DOB I TO ADMONISHES NATIONS. 165 

“Says niy interpreter, ‘This is the village schoolmaster.* ‘Who 
pays him ? ’ asks my learned friend ? ‘ The former pays him.* Very 

good. Now there comes along a very respectable lady, looking as if 
she had seen better days. She is dressed fairly up to the fashion; 
lumping out very large behind from the waist.” Mr. Dobito pushed 
away his chair, and gave a pantomimic representation of the swaying 
motion produced by a dress-improver. “ She has a pair of spectacles on, 
and she goes by with a very mincing and formal step. ‘ Who is this ? ’ 
says you. ‘ Why, that is the village schoolmistress.* ‘ And who pays 
her?* ‘Why, the farmer, of course.* Then after her come two 
strapping lasses, one with very high heels to her boots; perhaps the 
other with low shoes and buckles. ‘ Who be these ?’ asks my learned 
friend. ‘ These be the assistant-schoolmistresses.* ‘ And who pays 
them ? * ‘ Oh, oh ! the farmer pays them. Who but he ? ’ ” 

Mr. Dobito seated himself again, looked round the company, and 
took breath. He wanted the effect of his descriptions to sink deep. 
Then he resumed his prose ditty. 

“Now, see this hurly-burly looking fellow with a big fierce beard. 
You see him taking notes with a pencil. ‘ Who is this?* says you— 
says my learned friend, Mr. Morse. * This is the school-attendance 
otiiccr, looking for little lads whose fathers are too poor to let them 
spend their time in school.’ ‘ Who pays him?* ‘ Why, the farmer.’ 
Then a chap comes tramping stately down the road, with buttons 
shining like silver, and his nose in the air. ‘Who is this great person? * 
you ask. ‘This—oh, this is the village policeman.* ‘And who pays 
iiim?* ‘Why, the former.* Look at this portly man, thirteen or 
fourteen stone in weight he must be, surely; he seems as if he had 
pretty well enough to eat at all times, now, don’t he ? This is the 
relieving officer. ‘ And who pays him?* ‘The former.* Just stand 
out of the way of this one who comes sitting on the wrong side of the 
drive of a cart, and his wife with him on the other; they are a pretty 
heavy pair, and I tell you the weight of them makes the springs bump 
down. Do you knoAV who that man is ? That’s the inspector 01 
nuisances. ‘ Who pays him ? * ‘ The farmer, of course.* ’* 

Mr. Dobito was dramatic as well as methodical in his way of 
description. He assumed that each announcement as to the paymaster 
would be a fresh revelation to the audience, and he made the announce¬ 
ment with a burst. 

“ Now, look at this gentleman driven sitting down in a very suirerior 
turn-out; he wears a pair of blue spectacles to keep the dust out. 
‘ Who is he ?’ ‘ Well, he is the surveyor of roads.* ‘ And who pays 

him ? * ‘ The farmer pays him.’ See who comes after him—this man 

with the tall shiny chimney-pot hat and a fine broadcloth coat. See, 
he knocks at every door as he goes along. ‘Who is he?* ‘Well, 
that’s the rate-collector, calling to get the last penny every one has 
left.* ‘And who pays him ? ’ ‘ Why, the former.* Good. But just 

turn your eyes this way now for a bit. Do you see this poor old 
fellow, dressed not so fashionably by long odds, with a pair of old cord 


RIGHT honourable: 


166 

breeches, old leather lep;gings, a coat that has seen some service and 
lost its colour in it, and a particularly shabby old white hat ? He has 
an ash stick in his hand, this poor old chap, and he is jogging home to 
get some comfort, if he can, out of a glass of beer. ‘ VVhat old bloke 
is that?’ says my learned friend. ‘All, but that is old Steve Dobito, 
the farmer, the man who lives on the land and pays double the rates 
of any other man in the parish.’ ” 

This was the climax. Where Corporal Trim would have dropped 
his hat, Mr. Dobito poured out another glass of port. He looked 
round silent on the company. 

Morse spoke first. “ The farmer will have to carry some more bur¬ 
dens soon, I suppose, Mr. Dobito ? A dead Englishman and a dead 
foreigner on his back. The statesmen get them killed—our own poor 
fellows and the others; and the farmers pay for the work.” 

“ You come in, Mr. Morse, and don’t give us any war,” Mr. Dobito 
said. “We look to you.” 


CIIAPTKR XXr. 

“and may this would go W'ELL with you.” 

The fame of Zen’s improvements and decorations had gone abroad 
among the neighbours ; and when Lad3’' Clarence—Mr. Dobito’s friend 
and the lady who admired fox terriers—expressed a wish to see Mrs. 
Eustace Kenw-ay’s “diggings,” there was an adjournment to Zen’s 
boudoir while the men were in the dining-room. 

The upholsterers had oul}" just left it, and it had the appearance of 
a newly finished glove-box. The walls were of pale blue brocade, and 
the ceiling was satin, quilted and puckered, with a wonderful lamp 
hanging from its centre by gilt chains, up which green porcelain frogs 
were crawding. The draperies w^ere all of pale blue plush ; the chairs 
and sofas were covered with plush, and were of fantiistic shapes, after 
the order of the toadstool in the hall. All sorts of funny modern 
knick-knacks adorned the room. Dresden mirrors, gilt baskets, gro¬ 
tesque china monstrosities, odd little coloured glass lamps. There 
were no books, or pieces of wmrk, or any of the artistic fripperies which 
women like to collect. Zen seated herself squarely upon her plush 
sofa and surveyed the whole with naive complacency. 

“ I must say I like it,” she said. “ I told you that I knew how to 
make my little self comfortable. Didn’t I now? It’s the only thing 
worth doing. What else is there? It’s so jolly satisfactory to make 
one’s self comfortable.” 

“ But when it’s done,” said Lady Clarence, who was a sportswoman 
of Spartan habits, and liked nothing better than roughing it. 

“ Oh, then, there’s the satisfaction,” returned Zen, and she sighed. 
“7 don’t find much in life, except that kind of thing—eating and 
drinking and being amused. Some people are cut out for romance and 


^^MAY THIS WORLD GO WELL WITH YOUI 167 


sentiment, don’t you know? Like you, Koorkli. But you and I, 
Lady Clarence, aren’t that sort. Are we now ? 

Lady Clarence did not seem quite to fancy being set in a category 
with Zen. She only put up her eye-glass and inspected the frogs on 
the lamp-chains, supposing vaguely that they must feel a little out of 
their element. 

“ This is my daylight room,” continued Zen. “ Now, I’m going to 
show you ray night one. I had the satin and plush dyed to suit my 
complexion.' Do you like it? ” she asked with conscious triumph, as 
after having passed through a glove-box wardrobe room, she pushed 
open the doors into her bedroom and dressing-room. These were 
dainty nests indeed, lined with rose-coloured satin and draped in lace, 
with the most wonderful inlaid toilette table and long three-sided 
mirror, framed in silver, and with a special altar consecrated to silver- 
backed brushes of all shapes and sizes—there were twenty of them, 
Zen announced with delight, and it was matter for speculation how 
many of them could by any possibility be employed upon the little 
close-cropped head—and to powder puffs, silver-handled curling-irons, 
and frizzing apparatus. 

Lady Clarence laughed good-humouredly. “ This is the oldest part 
of the house, isn’t it?” she asked. 

“ Hundreds and hundreds of years old,” said Zen. You might go 
through the floor for twopence-halfpenny. It don’t look old now 
though, does it—or dirty? It was just as grimy! And all hung 
with tapestry, and done up with queer carving. I had that cleared 
away })retty smart.” 

“ I think I’d have kept the tapestry,” said Lady Clarence, with 
a little laugh. 

They proceeded on their tour of inspection ; but Koorali lingered. 
She had thrown back the Venetians, and was looking out of the open 
window upon the scene below. There was the wide terrace, with its 
bit of black lawn and the grey balustrades and solemn yew hedges on 
either side; and then, far below, the silvery line of river, and the low 
dark bank and ghostly trees shrouded in haze rising on the opposite 
side. Beyond that lay the flat meadows covered with thick white 
mist that looked as if it were the sea, and with just the dim outlines 
of a village above it, like distant land. 

When the rest had gone, KooiAli sank upon the floor and kneeled 
with her arms against the ledge and her chin upon them. She was in 
a strange excited state, her heart was quivering and she felt sick with 
the terror of something impending. All this seemed part of a dieam. 
She wondered what Morse would say to her husband. She wondered 
hf.w Crichton would regard the situation—if he would agree to leave 
England. To leave England] The thought seemed to clutch her 
heart, and she uttered a stilled cry at the pain it gave her. The con¬ 
viction swept over her with full force that she had never known till 
late months the exquisite joy and the exquisite pain which life can 
hold and love can bring. For the misery, too, was exquisite—there 


^^THE RICH! HONOURABLE.” 


168 

was no deadness, no blankness in it. But to go away—to be alone 
always wdth her husband . . .! 

She shuddered all over. 'J he phase of exaltation and glory in a love 
which seemed to her the outcome of her nature, the fruit of her very 
soul, had gone, as phases of the kind vanish, and she had now a sense 
as of guilt and shame. She seemed to see her little children’s faces. 
It was horrible, it was unnatural. U'he suffocating sobs shook her, but 
she wouldn’t let them have vent. “ Oh! why can’t I fight—and 
fight—and get the better of it?” she whispered fiercely to herself. 
“ It’s wrong—it’s wicked ! It’s because I’m a bad woman—that I 
hate —liQte him so. And he’s my husband ! Oh! God is cruel to us 
wives 1 AVhy dees He let us bind ourselves when we don’t know— 
when we canH know ? Why does He let the feeling grow, and cheat 
us into the fancy that it’s the noblest and the most beautif^ul—till it’.s 
like death to pluck it out ? Oh! I’d i at her die—I can’t—I can’t I ” 

She did not know how long she stayed at the window. It was only 
a few minutes perhaps. She got calm again, and the trembling ceased. 
She did not want to sob now and cry out. She was still kneeling, 
when Zen’s beads and bangles clinked in the room, and Zen stole u]) 
to the window, standing behind her, and looking out on to the mist 
and the silvery band of water and the black outlines of the yews. 
’Ihe mist was a little less dense, or the lamps in the village across the 
water had been lighted, for one or two shone below like beacon lights 
on the shore. 

Zdi did not speak for a monnnt. Presently she said, “I think it’s 
queer, that. It strikes me, don’t you know? We on this side, and 
they on that one. The poor rough creatures in those cottages, and we 
frivolous modern people; and this room—and everything. There’s 
only the river between—but such a gulf! They can’t picture our 
lives, and we don’t know theirs.” 

Koorali did not answer. 

Zen went on, in her abrupt yet reflective way. There’s that old 
bridge, it’s Saxon. And the Knights Templars used to look out on 
that very river and the meadows. It’s b-beastly queer.” 

She slipped down on the carpet beside her sister-in-law. Then she 
looked out at the night, and back into the rose-lined room, with its 
silver mirrors and the table with all the brushes, and shook her head. 
** It isn’t worth much, after all,” she said, with an odd, passionate 
quaver in her voice. “ I’d give it all—all—if I could be loved for my 
very own sedf. You’re better off than I am, Koordli.” 

Koorali turned with a quick gesture of sympathy, and clasped Zen’s 
hand. It was the first time she had ever felt so closely drawn towards 
Zen ; and now the pity and compassion which went from her were 
a relief to her surcharged heart. Zen’s pathetic declaration of loneli¬ 
ness and disappointment found its echo in her own soul. The tears 
gushed from her eyes. Presently Zen put her other hand on Koorali’s 
cheek and turiv d her face round. ’I'he light from a lamp in the room 
fell upon it and showed Zen a great tear on her eyelashes. 


^^AfAV THIS WORLD GO WELL WITH YOUI 169 

“ You’re crying,” exclaimed Zen. “ I knew quite well that you had 
the taste of ashes between your teeth this evening, though you tried 
so jolly well to make everybody believe it was all apples and roses. 
Has Crichton been bullying you?” 

“ No,” answered Koorali faintly. 

“ Is it money ? ” pursued Zen. “ I guessed that Crichton must be 
pretty hard up. His tailor wouldn’t give him tick. A man must be 
hard up when his tailor won’t give liim tick. Never mind how I 
know—I do.' Look here, Koorali. If it’s money, just you let mo 
lend you a helping hand. I needn’t tell Eustace, you know.” 

“ No, no,” said Koorkli hastily, “ I couldn’t. You are very kind, 
Zen; but, indeed, 1 couldn’t let you help me in that way. And, 
besides, it’s not money. It’s nothing—nothing that I can talk about, 
dear. I’m just a little melancholy this evening, and—I didn’t mean 
you to see it. Never mind me ; tell me about yourself. I’m so sorry 
that things are wrong with you; but, perhaps, it is all a mistake. 
And you are very fond of Eustace, dear. Nothing matters much if 
one only loves one’s husband.” 

“But I don’t,” said Zen slowly, her round rosy face paling and 
becoming hard and old-looking as she gazed straight before her out 
beyond the river. “ I did love him. I was idiotically fond of him, 
though I knew he was a mass of selfishness ; but I could not help it. 
You see, that’s the worst of never caring for any one all one’s life. 
When one does, it’s a bad job.” 

Koorali pressed Zen’s hand closer, and there was a little silence. 

“ I did love him,” repeated Zen, “ but that was all over before many 
months. It was over when I found out that he had only married me 
for my money. There, I’d cut out my tongue before I’d tell that to 
the Family!” 

“ Oh, Zen, perhaps you are mistaken,” said KoorMi. 

“ No, I’m not. I found it out. I found out that he had been in 
love with a woman in Florence who was married, a friend of mine”— 
the scorn in Zen’s voice was tragic—“who wanted to do him a good 
turn and get my fortune for liim. I suyipose she thought it wouldn’t 
make any difference; but it did,” cried Zen, with a flash of triumph. 

“ Eustace may be selfish, and he doesn’t care for me ; but he is a 
gentleman. He quarrelled with her and took me away. Then, after¬ 
wards, I began to see how bored he was, and I partly guessed, and my 
step-mother told me the rest. And when two and two are added 
together they generally make four,” remarked Zen. “ I didn’t want 
much telling. They think I’m a lump of pap, and no one ever sus¬ 
pects me of being able to see through a brick wall. But that’s my 
way. I’m deceptive. I’m noticing all the time that I’m rattling on 
by the yard, and I’ve noticed Eustace. I can read his thoughts. 

“ It was wicked of your step-mother; it was horrible!” cried Koo- 
rkli indignantly. 

“ Y'es, I must say I think it was low,” returned Zen. “ But, then, 

I told you she was pretty bad form; even I can see that. She funked 

13 


170 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


afterwards, and begged me not to let Eustace know. She said she had 
done it for my good. She need not have been afraid. 1 wasn’t likely 
to tell Eustace; 1 was too proud for that. But I felt bad enough, 1 
can tell you ; and I flew out at him—about nothing in particular. I 
stormed and raved ; and then, when I couldti’t hold myself in any 
longer, I rushed away up into the hills. Oh, you needn’t have minded 
my seeing you cry. Cry ! Why, Tve cried cataracts.” 

“ Oh, poor Zen ! ” murmured Kooihli. 

“Nevermind! I’ve got a hafpy faculty for throwing things cff. 
It’s all right as long as I keep going on like a steam engine. It was 
up in the hills, above Glion,” she went on in her hard bitter way. 
“ I lay on the ground and cried and shrieked. I dare say the people 
in the vineyard thought 1 was mad. So I was, for a bit. Then I 
picked myself up. When I got back, Eustace was smoking cigarettes 
and reading ‘ Autonr du Mariagc.’ He asked me, with the politeness 
of a Spanish Don, if I would mind, when I was quite calm, stating 
my wishes ch arly, so that he might comply with them. 1 could have 
stabbed him ; I was wild with rage. My blood boiled so that it sent 
me into a fever. I went to bed for a week ; my face swelled. I 
wouldn’t speak to Eustace. After a week I got up. There was a 
dance in the hotel that night. It was the first time I had met Lord 

Arden since my marriage-” Zen stopped abruptly. “ Well, that 

was the end of it all,’’ she added, “and I don’t mean to cave in. And 
you mustn’t either, Koorali. I should think Lady Clarence had seen 
th(! house by this time.” 

She got up, and Koorali rose too. Zen’s little burst of confidence 
had done KoorMi good. It had brought her back to reality, and yet 
the reality, when she thought of her fate trembling in the balance of 
Crichton’s self-interested wishes, seemed a ghastly dream. 

The gentlemen came in very .soon after KoorMi and Zen had returned 
to the drawing-room. Crichton and Morse were together, and Lord 
Arden and Mr. Dobito brought up the rear. Mr. Dobito, a little elated 
by Eustace’s port and the wrongs of the ratepayers, was taken in hand 
by Lady Clarence, and pn'sently Lord Arden spied Zen’s banjo in a 
corner, and brought it to her. 

It was a very magnificent banjo, like everything of Zen’s. It was 
got up in richly chased silver, and it looked very new and shiny, and 
matched Zen’s embroidery as, seated in a plush chair, with her feet on 
a gilt footstool, she held it on her lap. 

“ I can only sing one song,” she said, “and I can’t play anything 
but two breakdowns. I mix them up together because I think they 
sound more imposing, don’t you know ? And I’m only going to play 
because it isn’t good manners to refuse when you’re asked, don’t you 
see ? ” 

Zen played her breakdowns, and then the song was insisted upon, 
and she sang it with an odd look at Eustace as she thrummed the 
accompaniment. Eustace was watching her ; and, indeed, there was 
something comic and pathetic about Zen as she sat in all her finery 


^^MAY THIS WORLD GO WELL WITH YOU! 171 


fingering her banjo, with her elbows squared and the hard look of 
emotion kept under still on her face. 

It was a wild little American negro song. Her voice was sweet and 
had a melancholy note in it, and there was something very quaint and 
tender about the song. It had a refrain, which ran thus:— 


Andante. 



H 



-S- K -H-' 


n u I ^ ^ 


_sr—~j-: : 




st —p—9—a?- 

V 


• ^ a 





I’ll hang my harp on a weep-ing wil - low tree, And 








-9 — 


——I- 




may this world go well with you, 


you, you. 


JSfothing could be more sweet, simple, and pathetic than the air. 
The last word “ you was repeated with a sinking sad sound “ you— 
you—you!”—a plaintiveness like that of an evening breeze. There 
was something inexpressibly touching in this tender, fond little parting 
prayer. 80 Koorali thought at least. She found the tears coming 
into her eyes; she did not well know why. She found herself repeat¬ 
ing, in lowest tone, the words “ and may this world go well with you 
—you—you ! ” As she listened she saw that Morse was listening too, 
and was apparently absorbed in the song. When it was done he came 
to Zen obi a. 

“Kow, where did you get that song? ” he asked. “ Do you know 
tnat it is a genuine plantation song—a real nigger melody; not a 
thing got up for a London or even a New York music hall? I have 
not heard it for years and years. We used to hear it down south 
during the American war. The lugitive slaves used to come into our 
camps and take refuge there, and they used to get round a tire and 
sing that song. ‘ liadoo * is the plantation attempt at ‘ adieu.* I do 
wish you would sing it again,” 

Zenobia positively blushed with delight and pride at the success of 
her song. 



































































172 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


“I learnt it from a Southern States woman in the pension where I 
found Jo. Didn’t I, Jo ? She said the niggers sang it on the jdanta- 
tion at sundown.” 

Zen sang it again. Koorali and Morse listened. 

“'1 hat’s all,” said Zen. She got up, and Lord Arden took the 
banjo from her, and presently followed her to another part of the 
room. 

“I like yonr song,” he said; “and you have a very pretty voice, 
and should always sing simple things like that. It suits you.” 

Zen looked at him in her straight wistful way. 

“ Do you think it would he better if I were simpler aU'round ? Not 
so much of this kind of thing ? ” And she touched the fi inge of beads 
which made a sort of jingling girdle round her waist. “ Come, honour 
bright! ” 

Arden laughed. “Honour bright!” he repeated. “I don’t object 
to that sort of thing. It provides employment for poor work-girls ; 
but I shouldn’t mind if a little of it were converted into amusement 
for them.” 

“ Oh, I know,” said Zen. “ Cheap homes and reading-rooms, and 
entertainments and all that. I’m going to start an entertainment 
room here, and I want you to help me. I don’t mean the banjo sand¬ 
wiched betw'een prayers. I’d keep them separate. I’ve no patience 
with the people who think they have only got to put on their Sunday 
faces to fly straight up to heaven like a paper kite. That wasn’t what 
I meant. Lord Arden. I was thinking of myself.” 

Lord Arden was at that moment thinking of Koorali, tow'ards whom 
his eyes had turned. She was sitting some little distance off, quite 
still, but with Jin anxious look on her face. She was, in truth, 
absorbed in a lotv-toned conversation carried on between Morse and 
her husband, a word of w’hich she caught now and then. It was on 
the political situation ; the question of the appointment had not as 
jet, she fancied, been broached. 

“ Koorali is not simple. She is very complicated,” said Zen quickly. 

“ Your sister-in-law is not a happy woman,” returned Lord Arden 
unguardedly. 

Zen drew a long audible breath. “ Ah, you 1 ave found that out ? ” 
she said. 

“ I have let myself slip into an indiscretion,” replied Arden. “ I 
have no reason to suppose anything of the kind.” 

“Oh yes, you have,” exclaimed Zen ; “just the same reason that I 
have for knowung it, and that is only her face and her way this even¬ 
ing.” After a short pause, Zen went on with apparent irrelevance. 
“Were you quite in earnest about wdiat you said in the hall this 
afternoon. Lord Arden? Don’t you believe there can be such a thing 
as a happy marriage ? Because I want to know,” she w’ent on impetu¬ 
ously. “If it’s an impossibility, you see, there isn't much use in 
bothering about being found fliult wuth, for that is simply the thing 1 
can't bear—to be found fault w'ith.’’ 


THIS WORLD GO WELL WITH YOU:^ 173 


‘' I suppose nobody likes it, but we nil have to put up with it,” 
replied Arden, uncertain how to take her, and still thinking of Koorali. 

“ Oh, but it’s different with me. All my life I have been allowed 
to siiy and do what I ])leased, and nobody found fault, or, if they did,” 
added Zen artlessly, “ I didn’t care. I don’t mean that I’ve had a 
happy life, for I haven’t. Nobody ever cared for me ; but I ve always 
done and said what I liked.” 

Lord Arden was touched. “My dear Mrs. Eustace-” he began. 

And then he saw that Zen’s lips were quivering. 

She pulled herself up with a sort of jerk and an uncertain laugh. 

“ I’m talking to you just as I began to talk to KoorMi a little while ' 
ago, and it isn’t my way. I don’t really mean it. Never mind ! We 
are all in the dumps, this evening, aren’t we now ? There’s some¬ 
thing in the air. Look at Mr. Morse—he hasn’t been like himself 
either. You wouldn’t think, judging from his face, that he was a 
successful man and had made a happy marriage. If ever there ought 
to be a happy marriage, I suppose that’s it, for Lady Betty is just 
perfect. Yet I can’t get over the fancy. Lord Arden, that a woman 
who didn’t belong quite altogether to the great world would have 
suited him better,don’t j’ou know—someone altogether more romantic 
—more like—yes, more like Koorali.” 

Arden and Zen both glanced involuntarily towards Kooiali first, 
and then at iMorse. They saw that Crichton had moved away, and 
that Morse’s eyes were on Koorali. They saw that she turned her 
head as if drawn by a magnetic current, and that a look was inter¬ 
changed between the two. It was unconscious; it was very brief; 
both pairs of eyes were instantly averted, but much was revealed. 
The same thought fia.-hed across the minds of Zen and Arden. She 
shot towards him a glance of terrilied understanding. His eyes, 
meeting hers, had something of the same exi)ression. Just then 
Eustace lounged up, and said in his well-bred dravi l, “ My dear 
Zenobia, your negro melodies are very original, and charming, no 
doubt; but Lady Clarence is an excellent musician, in a different 
style—don’t you thing you might ask her to play ? ” 

Zenobia flushed up, and with an abrupt gesture went to do her duty 
as hostess. 

The evening wore away—to Koorali it had seemed interminable. 
At last she was alone in her room. Just as they were going upstairs, 
vshe heard Morse propose a cigarette on the terrace to her husband. 
The sound of their voices and steps reached her now through the open 
window. 

She had taken off her dress, and was wrapped in a loose white cash- 
mere robe. Her hair was unbound and plaited for the night like a 
child’s, in two long plaits that fell on her shoulders. She had occupied 
herself with it during some time. She paced the room restlessly for a 
little while, then sat down very quiet and pale in an arm-chair by the 
fireplace. She could not go to bed. She telt that she must wait np 
and hear Crichton’s decision. 



174 


^'‘THE RIGHT HONOURABLET 


CHAPTER XXII. 

THE LAST APPEAL. 

An hour or more passed slowly. '.The steps had died avvay, and Kooi ali 
supposed that her husband and Morse had gone within, ptrhaps to 
cany on their conversation in more serious strain. At last there wa- 
the sound of opening and closing doors, and of “ Good nights” inter¬ 
changed, and then Koorali heard the handle of her own door turned, 
and Crichton entered. 

He had a look of suppressed excitement. He held his head erect, 
and his long, lean neck seemed longer and leaner,'more than ever like 
that of one of those hungry hawks which Koorali remembered hanging 
round the stock-yard fence in Australia. He shut the door behind 
him and waited, as if for her to speak. But though she was cold with 
nervous expectation, it would have been impossible for her at that 
moment to frame a direct question. 

“ You are late,^’ she said in a mechanical way. 

“ I didn’t expect to find you waiting up for me,” he returned in that 
sarcastic tone which always chilled Koorali’s utterances. “ Why i-: 
this? Y'ou don’t often favour me with an opjxjrtunity for a conjugal 
tHe-a-tete. You are generally tired, or you have a headache, when 1 
want to talk over things wdth you.” 

Th'ere was a little pause. 

“ Have you not something you want to talk over with me to-night?” 
she asked. 

“ No,” he answered, coming opposite to her, and eyeing her with a 
curious expression on his face; “ I’ve said all that was necessary 
already—to Morse.” 

There was another silence. KoorMi got up from her chair, and 
moved towards him a step or two. Then she stopped short, and looked 
at him with anxious eyes. 

“ Crichton,” she said. 

“ Well ? ” 

“Y'ou know what I want to speak about?” 

“ Perhaps I do, iicrhaps I don’t,” he said, giving a harsh little laugh. 
“ You remember the man in Moliere, Koorali ? 'i'he doctor asks him 
if he knows Latin, and he answers ‘Of course I do, but speak to me as 
if I didn’t.’ ” 

He crossed to the fireplace, and stood with his back against the high 
mantel-piece and his eyes on the ground. 

“ About Mr. Morse,” Koorali went on in a firm voice as cold as his 
own. “ He has spoken to me. lie wants you to accept a permanent 
appointment—he can get it for you, out of England—in one of the 
colonies.” 

Ken way looked up and stared fiercely at her for a moment or two 
before he spoke a word. “ Does he take me for a fool ? ” he said at 



THE LAST APPEAL, 175 

last. “Do you take me for a fool, Koorali ? Do you think I haven’t 
had enough of the colonies in my time? Do you think I’m going to 
bury myself in some tiumpery colonial place, away from London and 
from everything that makes life worth living to a man of sense—to 
bury myself out there—with you ? Not I, my dear. And so I gave 
your friend Morse to understand. And so you may tell him, too. I 
prefer to take my chance with the other men who are waiting for him 
to come into power. Get him to try again, KoorMi. I dare say you 
can prevail upon him to mend his hand.” 

At another time Koorali would have resented the insinuation which 
lay only half-hidden under his tone and words. Now she took it 
patiently. Did she not deserve it ? No thought of wrong had ever 
come into her mind. No feeling unworthy of a woman had ever for 
a moment made her heart sound to a false note; and yet the conscious¬ 
ness of a secret forbade her now to be angry at her husband’s taunting 
w'ords. A woman less re.''olute than Koorali to do right would not, 
perhaps, have been so keenly sensitive. 

She moved a little and rested her hand on the back of a couch near 
which she stood. “ Crichton,” she said, very gently and soothingly, 
“you will let me advise \ou about this before you make up your 
mind, won’t you? Don’t let us speak bitterly to one another. I 
will try to please you all I can. We will be good friends. Our 
interests are the same, and we have our children—they ought to make 
us tender to each other. You will try to love me, and I will try to 
love you. I will, indeed; we are bound together in life or death, we 
two-” 

Crichton interrupted her with an impatif nt gesture. “ That’s all 
very true, and very nice, and very pretty, Koorali; but I don’t quite 
see what it has to do with the question of a colonial appointment. 
Come to the point, my dear, and don’t be too sentimental, please.” 

“ I wmuld rather you took Mr. Morse’s offer, Crichton.” 

“ Truly, but I would rather not, dear; and that makes all the 
difference, don’t you see ? ” 

“ But if I were to ask you, Crichton ? If I were to say that I felt 
sure it would be better for you and better for me ? ” KoorMi stooped 
forward and bent her pleading face towards him, but he kept his 
turned from her. “ We are not fit for this sort of London life—I am 
not, at least; and—oh, Crichton, it is right that you should consider 
me a little.” 

“ You are always giving me to understand that I consider you a 
very little,” he replied; and he smiled complacently at his own 
humour. 

“Oh, I do want to leave this place,”Koorali exclaimed passionately. 

“ I want to be out of it, away from it for ever. Crichton, do listen to 
me! I want to begin a new life in some other place. I want to forget . 
our quarrels and want of sympathy, and to start afresh. I do indeed. 

I believe that you and I can yet be happy together. At least, we can 
try. Let us try to be a good and loving husband and wife, and live 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


176 

fur each other and for our children, and love them and love each other 
in them. That is all my ambition now—all, all my ambition. And 
I will do all I can; I will be a good, true wife to you, and we will 
begin this new life, shall we not, together?” 

She spoke in little broken sentences, nervously pressing her hands 
upon each other. Crichton looked at her now with something of a 
more serious inquiry in his eyes, which he again averted.” 

I don’t understand all this, Koor^li. I don’t complain of yon. 1 
don’t see what you have to complain of. Many a woman would be 
glad enough to stand in your shoes. As for there being a want of 
.sympathy betw’ecn us, I suppose we agree in looking after our interests; 
what more do you want ? In the name of common sense, do you 
expect me to pay you compliments and attention as if I w'eren’t your 
husband ? There are plenty of other men to do that for you. You 
like to be sentimental, and to imagine that you are neglected and 
unhappy.” 

“In good truth, Ciichton,” she answered, with a plaintive smile, “I 
am often very lonely and very unhappy, and I think that you too 
must often feel we are not all to each other that we might be.” 

“ I never said so,” he replied, in a less rasping tone. “ I never said 
that you didn’t make a good wife to me. The fact i.s, I suppose, that 
you are too good—in all that sort of way—for a man like me. I dare 
say that I should have got on better with a woman of coarser fibre. I 
think I get annoyed sometimes by the thought that you are of too fine 
a grit for me, and that you know it. And then you exceedingly good 
little women have an irritating way of looking down on us poor sinful 
men of the world. Well, anyhow, I don’t find fault with you, Koorkli, 
and 1 think we rub along quite well enough, as married people go, and 
so there is no necessity to seek out some summer isle of Eden to begin 
a new existence in. That isn’t my form, dear; I prefer London life. 
Here I am, and here I mean to staj'.” 

“Have you no thought for me?” she pleaded. “Have you never 
thought that it may not be good for me—this kind of life, the life we 
lead in London ? ” 

“ What do you mean by * not good for you ’? Late hours and that ? 
My dear, you can stay at home if you like. Of course, it would please 
me better that you should go out and be seen everywhere, but never 
mind about that. Whether I am pleased or not, it is of no particular 
consequence, I suppose.” 

“ Crichton, you not understand me. I must speak plainly. I 
wouldn’t if I could help it. Do you think that a woman has no feel¬ 
ings and no weakness? You want me to go into society, to make 
iriends for you who will be useful. You want me to be admired. 
Have you never thought that I might—that 1 might come to like 
admiration too much ? ” 

“ No,” he answered coolly; “ and I don’t see what it would matter 
if you did. I suppose you could have enough if you tried for it.” 

Oh! ” she cried in something like a burst of despair, “ can’t you 


THE LAST APPEAL, 


177 

iindiTstand that I might get to think too much of one man’s admira¬ 
tion—and of him ? ” 

She looked at her husband straight, with an eager questioning gaze, 
as if she longed, yet feared, to read his soul. He did not at once 
answer, and he seemed determined not to meet her eyes. 

“Nothing would come of that—I know,” ho said at last with icy 
deliberation, 

“ No, except suffering to me ; and you don’t care about that—you 
don’t care about that, I know. But I was not thinking about myself 
only, Crichton,” she went on in a tone of forced quietness, “I was 
thinking about you. This life does not suit you. It never could. You 
would grow worse and worse in it. I mean that you could never be 
rich enough for the people yon care to live among; and you would try 
and strain to keep up with them and be like them, and it would be all 
a miserable mistake, with ruin at the end. See how we have been 
going to ruin here—in this short time. What appointment could you 
get in England which would give you half, or quarter, the money you 
want to spend ? Oh, I have thought it all out; and I could bear my 
own troubles, whatever they might be.” She stiffened herself up with 
a feeling of womanly pride. “ And nothing, as you sav, would come 
of that. But I see only ruin for you and disgrace for our children in 
the life we are sure to lead. I see us drifting farther and farther apart, 
till I tremble to think of what may come of it. I can answer for my¬ 
self, but you cannot answer for yourself, and you know it. My 
husband, forgive me. I want to take care of yon, and I want you, 
Heaven knows, to take care of me.” 

(kichton made a few impatient steps, and came back to his former 
position. 

“Look here, Koorkli,” he said, “ I think we have had about enough 
of this. You need not trouble about me. I would much rather be 
mined, as you call it, in London, than lead a stupid humdrum 
existence on a small salary as the governor of some pitiful hole of 
a colony. I don’t care about fine climate; I have had fine climate 
enough already. Pall Mall and Piccadilly are good enough for me. I 
want to be at the centre of things. I want to live in the world, and 
1 mean to do it too ; .so that’s settled. As for yon—well, my mind is 
quite at ease about you. I know the sort of woman you are. You’re 
cold enough and proud enough to be able to help me without doing any 
harm to yourself. Come, 1 don’t mean anything tragic.” For she 
had started, and her eyes flashed on him. “Why will you always 
take things and me from the point of view of the virtuous heroine of 
the Surrey Theatre? It’s stupid. It’s provincial. It isn’t life—at 
any rate, it isn’t my idea of life, and I think I’m a fair sample of the 
man of the world. We have got to live in the world, and to deal with 
w'orldly men and women ; not with a set of saints and prigs, or melo¬ 
dramatic demons either.” 

“ I want to understand you,” .she said very quietly. “ Your way of 
looking at things is not my way. I want to follow you if I can—I 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


178 

mean in what you say about my being able to help you. Tell me 
what it is you wish me to do. Tell me in i)lain words.” 

“ Sit down, then,” said Kenway. You look so deucedly uncom¬ 
fortable and superior standing up there. It’s very simple. I only 
\vant you to make my interests yours — and, by Jove, you can’t 
separate them—and to enjoy life.” He threw himself into an arm-chair 
as he spoke, and Koorali, obeying him, sat down upon the sofa by 
wdiich she had been standing. She waited for him to speak. 

“ You are a very pretty w'oman,” said Kenway at last, “ and a very 
clever one, in your way; a very good woman too. I have the fullest 
trust in you. I have a higher opinion of you than you seem to have 
of yourself, Koorali.” 

Her lips tightened a little ; she did not answer. 

“The world is our oyster,” continued Kenway, “and we have got to 
open it—you and I. It should not be a hard task. I flatter myself 
that I am something more than merely beauty’s husband. Morse has 
obligingly told me this evening that I have claims and capabilities. A 
great deal depends on you. You are quite right. We are husband 
and wile—bound to each other—and wo must stand or fall together. 
I only ask from you what any clever man has a right to expect from a 
clever wife.” 

Kenway waited again for a moment; but Koorali was still silent. 

“ You did not make the use which you might have made of your 
Opportunities this season,” he said. “ By an extraordinary piece of 
luck w’e managed to get into the thick of the political set. With a 
little tact, and by driving the nail home at the right moment, you 
might have made enormous interest in different quarters. As it is, 
you forced me to put all my eggs into one basket.” 

“ I don’t know what you mean,” she said slowly. “ How forced 
you?” 

“ Come, hang it, Koorali! You know that Morse’s attentions to you 
were pretty well talked over at the clubs and in the drawing-rooms. 
Do you suppose that people didn’t remark how often he came to see 
you, how he singled you out at places, and the keen interest you took 
in his political views ? I’m not hinting anything derogatory to you 
or him, or to myself. 1 fancy that I know how to take care of my 
wife; but the other men who might have pushed me forward dropped 
.away. It was your fault.” 

“ Crichton,” said Kooidlli passionately, “ you know very well why 
that w'as. Oh, I have learned a great deal during these months. I 
could not endure seme of those men. I don’t know how you could 
endure them.” 

“ You choked off Coulmont, who will be a power if the war parly 
carries the day. He is a man who never forgets or forgives being made 
to feel small, and you made him feel small. It was stupid, dear. As 
long as I didn’t mind a little silly sentiment, you might safely have 
amused yourself with it. Another woman would have managed the 
situation, and would have kept his friendship.” 


THE LAST APPEAL, 


179 

“I believed that I had kept his friendship—or, at least, his respect.” 

Oh, that’s rot! ” said Ken way with his incisive drawl. “ It doesn’t 
rjo down with a man like Coulmont. lean see through his offer of 
this appointment. What I can’t see through is why Morse wants me 
to acc(?pt it—unless Lady Betty is at the bottom of the whole thing.” 

Koorali’s chest heaved. She was siilfering as only a proud woman 
can su ffer. 

“ No; I don’t understand it,” Kenway went on reflectively, “ A 
man doesn’t generally do his best to put a woman whose society pleases 
him out of reach—not such a man as Morse — Coulmont is quite 
another sort. Of course you did the right thing from the ‘lofty 
morality’ point of view, in turning the cold shouider on him; but 
women of the world have ways of gliding over the quicksands without 
loss of dignity. You managed badly, dear. You should try a little 
finesse. It’s an accomplishment, however, not to be learned in South 
Britain. Well, never mind, you lost Coulmont, and you lost Inglish 
and Barry; and next season you will be a little out of date, and the 
crisis will be over. If Morse hasn’t come in, my chance will have 
slipped by.” 

“ Mr. Morse may not come into power,” said Koor^li, still in that 
quiet, repressed way. “He has told me that it is likely he will not 
take the chance even if it is offered liim. Wouldn’t it be better, 
Crichton, seeing that I have, as you say, mismanaged opportunities, to 
secure this one ?” 

“ Morse will go in,” said Crichton. “ I don’t believe in the con¬ 
scientious scruple which holds a man back from being Prime Minister 
of England. Hasn’t he been working up to this for years? His party 

wouldn’t let him draw back. By God, if he does-” Kenway got 

up excitedly from his seat. He made a few hurried paces, then stopped 
at the mantel-piece in his old attitude. “Listen, Koorali,” he said. 
“ Morse will be in power, and he will get me a good appointment if 
you play your cards properly. I’m not blind. I’m not a fool. Drop 
the i^art of stage heroine, and be a woman of the world. You like 
Morse’s society. He likes yours. You like the London life, though 
you’ve imagined yourself into an hysterical dread of unreal evils—the 
glittering throng, the modern Babylon, and so on. If you want us to 
get on happily together, and to be a united husband and wife—if you 
want to further your boys’ interests, this is how you can do it. Keep 
good fiiends with Lady Bett}’', and be Morse’s political Egeria—if you 
both like it. Why should he want to pack you off to a distant colony ? 
Why should you wish to go ? ” 

Koorali rose, almost blindly. “ Because—because- Oh, Crichton, 

have you no mercy ?” She stretched out her arms helplessly. It was 
indeed as if she were clutching at some spar out of the sea, and the 
hand which ought to have helped her to safety had only seized her 
wrist to detach it from its hold and fling her out again upon the dark 
tossing waters. Her voice broke in a passionate sob; but she com¬ 
manded it after a moment. “ I will never ask Mr. Morse to givo you 



i8o 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


an appointment in England,” she cried. “Let us get deeper and 
deeper into debt—let us starve first. This is our last word on this 
subject. I thought, Crichton, that if you had ever loved me, you 
would help me, and be gentle and crood to me, not cold and sneering 
and cruel, when I came to you like this, when I asked you-for my 
sake, when I wanted so to begin afresh, and to be a good and true wife 
to you. But it can’t be. It’s no use. You don’t love me. You can, 
never have loved me—and I—Heaven help me !—I can’t love you. 
Crichton, and I can’t respect you. And so we must go our ways, and 
it may be ruin and misery; or, it may be, that you will get what you 
want now, and the worst ruin and misery will come later. I don’t 
think there can be any worse ruin, Crichton, or any worse misery than 
such a marriage as ours.” 

She passed him swifily, and almost before he could realize that she 
was leaving the room, had closed behind her a heavy oak door at one 
side of the fireplace. It led into a tiny boudoir—one of the curious 
nooks in that part of the house which Zen had fitted up. Koorali shot 
the bolt; and then she flung herself upon a cushioned settee beneath 
the high mullioned window, and all her passion and her difficult effort 
spent itself in a storm of sobs. 

Kenway made several attempts to open the door; but it did not 
yield. He called her—at first angrily, then soothingly—but she made 
no answer; indeed, she hardly heard his voice. By-and-by he desisted, 
and all was silent. There was no light in the room, except the un¬ 
certain glimmer from without. All the rest of the night Koorali sat 
there. After the first burst of sobbing, she cried no more. Her heart 
seemed frozen. The pale grey dawn crept in through the window and 
found her still sitting there all cold and white and lonely. 


CHAPTEH XXIII. 

“thou SHALT RENOUNCE.” 

But in those grey hours, brain, heart, and soul were working; and the 
Kooiali who watched the dawn creep in and the sun rise on that 
morning—a turning-point indeed in her life—was not the KoorMi of 
yesterday—the struggling, bewildered creature, feeble and uncertain, 
not daring to trust in her own strength, but beating helplessly this 
way and that, and in her despair clutching at a reed for support. 

The reed had pierced her hand. As she sat there, with her head 
pressed back against the stone frame of the window, and her arms 
clasping her knees in that childlike attitude of hers, it came more and 
more in upon her that she had known from the very first how it would 
be, and yet had never told herself. She seemed to have read her 
husband’s character from their marriage day, and yet to have struggled 
on, wilfully blinding herself. She felt a great scorn and a great”pity 
over the futile efforts she so well remembered having made. She had 


^^THOU SHALT RENOUNCE: 


i8i 


tried so hard to believe that he was not base, that his selfishness, his 
bad temper and constant reach for the lowest motives, were only faults 
on the surface and not rooted in his nature. Her very acceptance of 
him as he was, her dulness and indifference had been a sort of self- 
deception, evident to her had she allowed herself to analyze. But she 
had been living too keenly during the past months for indifference to 
be any longer possible. She knew her husband as he was—as he had 
always been—cold-hearted, mean, cruel; one who would sell his wife 
—in the spirit, if not in the letter; trade upon her “temperament; 
traffic -with her smiles; train her to be as cold and selfish and base as 
himself. 

“ It is wrong. It cannot be; ” a voice within her spoke passionately. 
“ God never joined two souls for baseness. I am not his wife. He is 
not my husband. I despise him—I shrink from him. I—oh, God 
help me!—I hate him. What right has he over me—or over my 
children, to make them as bad as he is?” 

She did not feel weak now, or uncertain. An icy self-reliance sus¬ 
tained her. She thought the matter out. Her very forlornness and 
her desperation gave her strength and courage to face the position—to 
face it wdth a strange mingling of romantic exaltation and worldly 
wisdom. She knew the part she must play; the life she must at 
least appear to lead. She and Crichton were divided in mind and 
feeling as completely as though they were strangers. Had themselves 
alone been in question, her reason and her instinct of right would have 
declared that they had better live apart, and she would have gone— 
whither she cared not, so that she were away from him and alone. 
But her children were chains which held her fast; would hold her 
for ever. Her sense of duty to them must override her wild longing 
for freedom, her sense of duty to herself. She must remain by her 
husband’s side, by the side of the father of her children. She must 
show a semblance of union to the world, must shut eyes, cars, heart, 
and live blind, deaf, and starved of love, for her children’s sake. But 
she would lend herself to no ignoble schemes. Her children should be 
taught to honour disinterestedness. Buin might come—and, in truth, 
might it not be best; for, when Crichton found her a burden, might 
he'not give her liberty and the children? She would not steal her 
liberty; but oh, how gladly would she take it if Crichton released her, 
and allowed her and her boys to go 1 

This was the part she laid down for herself. There should be no 
more effort to reconcile antagonistic natures, no more beating against 
the bars. She must accept her lot, and bear it as nobly as she might. 
Better loneliness, desolation, than a perpetual pressing forward against 
knife-thrusts. One possession, at least, she owned, which dignified her 
for ever. To have it fuller or richer would be to dishonour it. She 
w’as o-lad that Morse had never spoken one w'ord of love to her—that 
she c*ould look into Lady Betty’s eyes and know herself no traitress, 
Her king, her knight, her blameless hero 1 Thank God that there 
were men like him, to make women believe in truth and goodness I 


“ 77 /^ RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


182 

She had almost let her faith slip. Was not that the worst son*ow ? 
If all men in the world were like Crichton, what poverty in Heaven ! 
The woman’s heart hied. As it bled there came an involuntary 
murmur, woman-like, wilful. “Might he not have kissed me just 
once?” But it was silenced in an instant; and she put the thought 
from her as something evil, as of something outside herself working 
for evil. Yet it was only a thought, swett and tender and poetic. 
Her lips had never in her life been touched by those of any lover, 
save, indeed, her husband; and she had been proud that this was so, 
with a kind of hard, melancholy pride. Now she knew that something 
Iwd been wanting to her always, and must always be wanting. She 
felt like the childless mother, whose little one has never seen the 
light. 

In good truth, Koordli was thirsting for some expression of the love 
which every woman feels should be hers by right of nature. There 
was a painful stab in the knowledge that she could have loved, and 
loved well. Oh yes, yes; Koorali knew that she, who seemed so cold 
and niggardly, could warm under the right influence, and give a love 
beyond the gift of most women and worthy of the beloved one. She 
knew' herself to have been warped, stunted by her marriage. There 
was bitterness and wrong here. All the petty bickering and clashings, 
the resentful withdrawing into herself, the constant and bewildering 
readjustment of her standard—all this had been so much injury to what 
God had cn-aled. She dared not think of her.self as she might have 
been, fltly mated. It w'as like a tantalizing glimpse of an impossible 
heaven on earth. Could any heaven accordant with tradition give her 
the sunshine under which her nature might blossom to perfection ? 
A right to one, a WTong to another equally deserving; the whole 
scheme an impossible puzzle. Then why these cruel glimmerings of 
an ideal ? 

Koorali might well have lost anchorage. Like many w’omen of 
delicate fibre, however, she had at times of crisis a curious strength of 
resolution and pow'er of fighting her wary straight through opposing 
forces. Nervously impressionable as she was, her spirit rose and she 
felt a certain excitement in the prospect of a battle, w'hether hidden or 
in the open. Her battle now could not be in the open. What she 
had to do W'as very clear. She w-as Crichton’s wife—his servant, she 
reflected bitterly, w ithout a servant’s privileges. Unless he gave her her 
freedom, she must for her children’s sake remain subject to him. He 
chose to expose her to danger, and she must defend herself. iShe had 
made her appeal to him for protection, and it had been fruitless. It 
was not temptation she dreaded—there she was sale —but suffering. 
Well, she must wrap herself round, and silently bear her pain. As 
Morse had said, a great misfortune had come to him and her, and 
there was nothing but to bear it—to go on with her life and give no 
sign. Under altered conditions endurance becomes easier. This was 
the worst kind. She must live in conventional intercourse with her 
husband—in conventional intercourse with the man she loved. Her 


THOU SHALT RENOUNCE.^' . 183 

hope la}' in clinging to the conventional. Morse, she was certain, 
would understand her. With Crichton she would simply stand armed 
on the defensive, ignoring as far as she could the real knowledge of 
him, and hiding her feelings under a mask of courtesy. She would 
try to be always courteous to him, to comply with his ordinary wishes, 
to talk to him on the outside of things, to yield where no principle 
was involved. She would never again attempt to reason, or argue, or 
appeal. She hoped that he would be content with such seeming. 
Since she had satisfied herself that he did not care for her, she thought 
this possible. Her imagination travelled too swiftly to take count 
of all the difiiculties, and she did not foresee the galling of such yoke- 
fellowship. 

The old friendly companionship with Morse, she decided, must not 
be resumed. In the presence of Lady Betty and of others she must 
seem what she had always been, and continue still to show the old 
interest in Morse’s career; but below the surface all would be different. 
She must avoid being alone with him, and he would help her in this. 
There would be no more droppings-in on his way to the House of 
Commons for a quiet confidential chat, no more saunterings on the 
terrace, no more of the vaguely tender, wholly intimate notes dashed 
off in the upstairs lobby during the intervals of debate to tell her how 
things were going on—all this must come to an end. 

So it was that the morning, though it found her pale and wasted by 
the torturing thoughts and sleepless night, found her also composed, 
and with the almost stupefying sense of a new existence begun. She 
was spared the meeting with her husband for two or three hours yet. 
She heard him called when the first signs of movement began in the 
house, and remembered that some of the party were going out cub¬ 
hunting that morning, he among them. Presently the horses came 
round and were led up and down the gravel sweep. Oh yes, the world 
Avent on, and people got up at six o’clock for cub-hunting, and scolded 
their grooms and swore over the tics of their gaiters, no matter whether 
hearts were breaking within a few feet of them. 

• Zen’s robust voice sounded at Crichton’s door, inquiring if he were 
ready, and he replied in his most genial tones with a compliment 
upon her punctuality. Crichton cultivated what Lord Beaconsfield 
once called “a violent good humour” in his manner to Zen. 

When they had gone Koorali came out of her retreat. She was stiff 
and chilled, and she shrank back at the sight of her own image in the 
cheval-glass—it looked so like a ghost. She crept into bed, and slept 
like a tired child. 

She rose late. Crichton came into her room, still in his him ting 
clothes, when she was almost dressed. He looked at her nervously as 
he entered. There was some fear in his mind lest he had gone too far 
—had put things too plainly, and roused her indignation or hurt her 
feelings. There was so much “twaddle and rot,” as he phrased it, in 
women of the higher type. Of course it was the right theory that 
one’s wife shouhl belong to the higher type, but the lower one Avas 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


184 

infinitely pleasanter to deal witli. However, he reflected, women’s 
feelings are more readily amenable to marital treatment, and it must 
be a very unreasonable wife who, after ten years’ experience, looks for 
sentiment and fine speeches from her husband. Koorali had been 
out of sorts the night before. Probably, if the truth could be known, 
she had herself felt dissatisfied with the progress of her flirtation with 
IMorse. Kenway was an old hand at it, and she evidently w^asn’t quite 
up to all the tactics of the game, and had a little overdone the part 
of rigid propriety. She had resented his apparent wish to remove her 
from London, and her resentment had found vent in the little out¬ 
burst. Crichton knew what that sort of thing meant, and how long 
it lasted. KoorMi could take a very practical view of matters when 
she liked. She had probably come to that view by this time, and had 
determined to handle Morse more artfully. The darting thought shot 
through him—\vas the whole thing a put-up job, after the Lord Steyne 
and Becky Sharp pattern, to get him, Crichton, out of the way ? By 
the Lord, if that were so, he’d soon show them that he wasn’t a man 
to stand that sort of thing! But the sight of his wife’s pale pure 
face, as she sat under her maid’s hands before the glass, forced the 
suggestion from his mind. Ko; Kooi^li wasn’t deep enough for that. 
She had only had a slight access of hysterical virtue—had been a little 
frightened perhaps, had not given him credit for intending to take care 
of her. Of course he would keep things from going too far; he could 
not let her be placed in a false position. In the meantime she must 
be taught to play her cards like a woman of the world—to play into his 
hand. It was quite time that she should see there need be no atfecta- 
tion between them. Doubtless she was beginning to see this already. 

The composed way in which she looked up as he approached con¬ 
firmed this theory. Her face was like that of a statue—but it smiled. 
Evidently she meant him to understand that there was no ill-feeling 
on her part. He began to admire her as a woman of sense, and to feel 
more comfortable. 

“Good morning, Crichton,” she said quietly. “I hope that you 
enjoyed your run.” 

“ One doesn’t expect much of a run at this time of the year,” re¬ 
turned Crichton, with an easy laugh. “We had a little spin after a 
game cub. Old Dobito was none the worse for his potations last 
night, and a good many of the fellows sneered; and it was a little 
hard on Zen the way they seemed to think 1 ought to be at the 
Priory. By Jove, if I were Eustace, I’d go in for something better 
than French novels.” Crichton came up closer to Koorali, a-nd put 
his hand upon her shoulder. The maid had left the room. “ I hope 
that you are pretty well, dear ? ” There was an ill-concealed touch of 
anxiety in his tone. Now was the moment for fuss, if she meant 
to make any. 

“ Yes, thank you,” KoorMi replied, rising as she spoke, so that he 
was obliged to take his hand away. “I will go downstairs now. Do 
you know where everybody is to be found ? ” 


^^THOU SHALT RENOUNCE: 


185 

“Oh, about the tennis-ground, I fancy. I said that I’d play a 
inatcli with Jo Garling as soon as I had got into my flannels.” 
Crichton’s air was now quite self-assured. Clearly, KoorMi was going 
to be reasonable. The counsels of the night had brought her wisdom. 
“By the way, KoorJili,” he began, and paused lor an instant while she 
steadily took u]) a ring from a stand on the toilette table, and put it 
on her finger, “ Morse has had a telegram or something from Lady 
Betty, and starts off at once to meet her in London. He was asking 
after you.” 

“I will go down,” said KoorMi mechanically. She put on her rings 
one by one. 

“ I don’t think you need say anything to him about that question 
of the appointment,” said Crichton in an off-hand way. 

“ No,” she answered. 

“ Better let the whole thing stand over till after the elections; and 
then see what my luck turns up. I’m a great believer in my luck. 
It has carried me over a nasty place more than once—eh, old girl?” 

Koorali was silent; but he repeated his question and forced her to 
answer him. She turned to him with that hard bright look in her 
eyes which puzzled while it reassured liim. 

“You know the saying, Crichton—about riding luck to the devil 
—isn’t it? I don’t myself believe in trusting to one’s luck, perhaps— 
because my luck has never helped me in a trouble.” She moved to 
the door. “I’ll tell Jo, shall 1 , that you will be down presently?” 
she said, and left him. 

Cricliton hummed an air softly to himself as he changed his clothes. 
His gallop that morning had done him good. He meant to have some 
capital days’ hunting that season. His short experience of the country 
luid already shown him that he might be very popular in the field. 
“What a confounded ass Eustace is,” he murmured; “ and what a 
confounded ass I was not to wait till I got home, and marry a woman 
with money.” On the whole, however, he did not look so darkly 
upon life. He felt inwardly convinced that Morse would never throw 
up his chances, and that Morse could and would, if Koorali chose, give 
him something good in London. He did not intend to be Governor of 
Earnesia, unless the worst came to the very worst, and if it did, and 
Earnesia could not keep, something else would turn up—something 
else, or, as he melodramatically put it, revenge. He was not going to 
be played fast and loose with and not strike a blow on his own account. 
Underlying his outward friendship with Morse there was a deep 
jealous resentment. He hated Morse for being stronger, better, and 
more prosperous than himself. He hated Morse, who he taught him¬ 
self to believe had started only a little ahead of him in the race, for 
having gained the goal so quickly; for having been successful in 
Australia, and still more successful in Englan I; for having married 
such a wife as Lady Betty, highly born and rich. In a strange incon¬ 
sistent way he resented while he encouraged Morse’s admiration of 
Koorali. He felt angry and secretly humiliated because Morse had 

1.3 


THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


186 

found that in Koorhli which he had never found, had touched a spring 
in her nature that he had never reached. Tliere was something 
W'arped, morbid, and unnatural in his feelings towards Morse. He 
meant to make use of Morse’s power if he could. Failing that, he 
would joyfully have lent a hand to hurl Morse from his position, and 
bring discredit upon him. 

There was a slight autumnal chill about the air which at another 
tinie Koorali miiiht have found pleasant and reviving. Now, however, 
it seemed to strike cold to her heart. It was only too much in accord 
with the chill which everything else brought with it to her. She 
went out in front of the house. A little group of men and w'omen 
was there, and KoorMi saw Morse among them. They w’ere laughing 
and talking gaily. She went towards them. When IMorsc saw her 
coming he went out to meet her. So did Lord Arden. 

They talked the fine weather a little; and Morse spoke of his 
having to go up to town and his regret at leaving so pleasant a gather¬ 
ing. it was the regular conventional sort of talk. Arden struck in, 
and some pleasant things were said, and Koorali was as bright as she 
could contrive to be; and no one merely looking on would have sus¬ 
pected that any soul’s tragedy was being enacted there all the time. 
Some one else added himself or herself to the group and others dis¬ 
persed, and it was about the time when Llorse ought to be saying 
good-bye to his hostess and his friends. 

It had grown to be quite a common thing for Morse and Koorali to walk 
together and talk, and so it ha|)f)ened that the others of the company 
gradually dropped aw’ay. Miss Jo and Mr. Erie were flirting demurely 
over the tennis-net. Now Crichton came out, and a set was being 
formed. Morse and Koorali wvre left alone. Tluy began to pace up 
and down in the old way. Koorali held her br.ath. She knew he 
would do the right thing; yet the moment was critical, and she felt 
profoundly anxious. They were near the rose gaiden and that flight 
of steps where he had gathered the roses for her on that da 3 ^ The 
broad walk below, with its myrtles and magnolias blooming in the 
embrasures of the wall, and its tangled border of late flowers, seemed 
to invite them for a last brief interchange of confidence. KoorMi 
sometimes thought herself yatifully weak, womanish. Her heart beat 
with longing and dread. But the strength of the min .‘■howed now. 
At first he seemed about to go clown the steps that led to the louder 
terrace; but he suddenly checked himself and a shade came over his 
face. Well, she need fear no longer. She knew what w-as passing in 
his mind. No; they must not go there—ever again. Her heart was 
as an echo of his. Them Morse spoke— 

“ Jt is rather a nuisance to have to go back 1o town at this soison, 
Mrs. Kenway,” he said, “ when everybody is away.” 

. Yes; she understood. It was exactly what she would have had; 
exactly what she might have expected from his tact. Ins feeling, his 
strong steady manhood. Henceforth, when they chanced to be throwm 
together and alone—if they ever were again to be alone—they were to 


^^THOU SHALT RENOUNCE: 


187 

be strictly formal and conventional. They were to be—like any other 
two. If the unspoken words of the lower terrace were not to be for¬ 
gotten—if they could not be forgotten—yet they must be remembered 
only as unspoken ; as never to be spoken. Thus, and not otherwise, 
could all be redeemed and the past pass without leaving taste of bitter¬ 
ness or tinge of shame behind it. She felt grateful to him; grateful 
once more. But, of course, she knew it would be so; she knew 
that he would feel as she felt. She answered in a quiet, steady 
voice— 

“ But you would have to leave this place very soon, in any case, for 
the election campaign, would you not ? ” 

“ Oh yes; I shall have two constituencies on my hands, you know. 
I think I shall bo beaten in one; but the other is my old place, and I 
am pretty safe there. I am going to town to meet my wife. She is 
only passing through; coming from Homburg, and going on to some 
place in the country. I don’t quite know all her plans as yet.” 

“ I hope you will be successful in your more difficult contest,” Koo- 
rh.li said. 

“ Thank yon, Mrs. Kenway; you are very kind. Except for the 
political advantage of making the fight and carrying the seat, if I can, 
I would rather stick to my own old constituency. But we must make 
the fight.” 

“ Then I hope you wull win.” 

“ Thanks, very much. I shall do my best.” 

Then it w^as announced that the phaeton was ready to take Morse 
to the station. One or two of the other guests were going somewhere 
by the train as well. 

“ Good-bye, Mrs. Kenway,” Morse said, raising his hat. 

“ Good-bye, Mr. Morse. I hope you will have a pleasant journey to 
London, and that you w-ill find Lady Betty quite well.” And then, 
after a second’s pause, Koorali bravely added, “My—love—to Lady 
Betty, please.” 

“ Certainly; she is sure to ask me about you. Good-bye.” 

They shook hands in the conventional way. No faintest pressure 
told of feelings existing but kept down. The new rule of life had 
become an unwTitten law for both of them. Koorali looked along the 
j)ath for a moment as Morse went his way, and many strange thoughts 
and memories passed in confusion across her mind. All w\as over now 
but the dying. The struggle was at an end. The curtain of tragedy 
had fallen ; the farce of the formal and the conventional had yet to be 
]ilayed. The life of cold restriction and mere self-denial had begun. 
Such, she felt, was the only life left for her to live any more. 

She saw him cross the lawn to say good-bye to Zen and the tennis- 
players. She heard the laughter and the parting wishes that he might 
have a successful electoral campaign. She saw her husband throw 
down his racket and go with Morse to the phaeton, and she saw him 
bend t( wards Morse while he talked in an eager, confidential manner, 
with his watchful eyes upon Morse’s face, which was cast down and 


i88 “r/y£ RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 

moody. She could almost fancy she heard Crichton’s good wishes 
uttered in that frank tone that covered so much. 

The phaeton drove away. It was all over, and death was in her 
heart. She had never realized the meaning of the phrase till now 
the death of love which had not been allowed to live. She went back 
to the rose garden and stood among the blossoms and the buds, so 
many of which would be nipped before they came to bloom. Some 
one had been watching’her with sympathy in his eyes. It was Lord 
Arden. He longed to show her that she had a friend who understood 
her and felt for her, but he could hardly venture to thrust himself upon 
her then. 

There was a call from the tennis-players for Mrs. Crichton Kenway, 
and Zen was running forward, but Arden interposal. 

“No, no, Mrs. Eustace. Let me find your sister-in-law for you. 
But I feel perfectly certain she won’t join in.” He went towards Koo- 
rali. “ Mrs. Kenway, they want you to play tennis; and you don’t 
want to, I am sure.” 

“Oh no.” Koorali started at his voice, and looked at him as if she 
were awakening from a dream. 

He saw that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “ Then let us 
take a little turn instead.” 

They strolled away past the rose garden and beyond the big clump 
of yews to a walk in the shrubbery. She shrank from the lower 
terrace towards which he made a movement, and he noticed this and 
remembered—he hardly knew why—that she had been walking there 
with Morse yesterday. 

The path they had chosen led down to the river. They talked on 
indifferent subjects fur a little while. Koorali’s remarks were con¬ 
strained and absent. Suddenly Arden said, on an impulse of the 
moment— 

“ Mrs. Kenway, I’m sure you haven’t been quite well lately, or you 
are a little worried about something. Don’t think me impertinent— 
and I don’t suppose I ever could do anything really in the way of 
advising or helping you; but I do want you to know that if I could, 
and you’d let me, it would be just the greatest happiness I could 
have.” 

A bright flush rose to KoorMi’s pale cheeks. She turned her eyes 
to his with an almost childlike expression of mingled gratitude and 
embarrassment. She was too truthful to deny that there was anything 
amiss with her, though she winced under the suggestion; and she 
liked Lord Arden too sincerely to resent his solicitude. 

“No, there’s no way in which you can help me. Lord Arden; but 
thank you all the same. It is kind of you to think about me.” 

“ At any rate,” he said more earnestly, “ you know that I mean it; 
and I think there might come to be a way some time or other. Some¬ 
how there generally does come to be a way, I think, in which a true 
Iriend can give one help. You’ll let me call myself your true friend, 
Mrs. Kenway?” 


THOU SHALT RENOUNCE: 


189 

“ Oh yes, indeed; I nm glad,” she answered warmly. 

“ It's what I am—nothing more nor less—whether you will have it 
or not. And so, now you know—as the children say,” he added, with 
a little laugh which concealed some emotion. 

“ I know that you are very good,” she said, and her voice trembled. 
“ There’s no one I’d rather trust than you, and I am proud to have 
you for my friend. But you’re a little mistaken—I mean in thinking 
that I need help or advice—or—anything now. My way is quite 
straight. I’ve only got to walk in it.” 

“ Bromise me, anyhow, that if you ever do want them you’ll give 
me a chance,” he pleaded with almost boyish eagerness. “You may 
safely make the promise, Mrs. Kenway, since you are so certain the 
need won’t arise.” 

She thought a moment or two, with her look bent on the ground. 
Then she raised her dark truthful eyes to his face. She saw great 
kindness, true interest, and perfect sincerity written there. 

“I never had a sister,” he said, “and you are just the woman I’d 
like to have for my sister. Come, won’t you give me the promise?” 

“ Yes, I will,” she said simply; “ and thank you, Lord Arden.” 

There was a little silence. He was more moved than he cared to 
show. They turned homeward. Presently he said— 

“ You never met my father, did you, Mrs. Kenway ? ” 

“ Lord Forrest ? No. But he never goes out, does he ? ” 

“ Almost never. He is an invalid, and belongs to the past somehow. 
He lives among books and pictures and bric-h,-brac; and the house is 
dreary and seems to want a woman about it. He has a chivalrous 
sort of liking for just a few women—Lady Betty Morse is one of 
them—and they go to see him now and then; he very rarely goes to 
any of them. I think you’d like him, Mrs. Kenway: and I know 
he’d be deeply interested in you, and that you would be doing a kind¬ 
ness if you’d let me take you to see him some time when we are all in 
London again.” 

“ I will, most gladly,” said Kowali. “I have heard o^f your father ; 
and I 1 ave made a picture of him in my imagination, and it will be 
a great pleasure to me to know him.” 

Arden knew that her sweet poetic face, her sympathetic intelli¬ 
gence, and shy, graceful manner, Avith the suggestion it gave of some- 
th'ng un-English, would delight Lord Forrest; and he had an instinc¬ 
tive feeling that the friendship of the cultivated, exclusive, and 
chivalrous old Jacobite nobleman might be of advantage to her in the 
somewhat difficult part she had to play in London society. 


^'THE RIGHT HONOURABLEl^ 


190 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

PURSUING A PHANTOM.” 

Morse went that evening to meet his wife at the Charing Cross 
station. The compartment she occupied was in the lower end of the 
train, and it was she who came first towards him, instead of him find¬ 
ing her. As she walked along the platform, the light of the electric 
lamps full upon her slender figure wrapped in a long furred cloak, and 
her bright small face unshaded by the little travelling cap she wore, a 
strange, sudden feeling, not unfamiliar, rushed over him—a fancy that 
he was somehow in the presence of a ghost. He had felt this upon 
his first meeting with Koorali in England. He felt it now, when 
looking at his wife. It was as though some association connected 
with the two women brought before him the shade of his once- 
cherished ideal. Which was the ghost?—which the reality ? Had he 
found his ideal in Lady Betty? or had it shone upon him but once 
long ago in the soft brightness of an Australian dawn ? 

Lady Betty was looking well, notwithstanding her long journey. 
tShe bad a faint colour, and her eyes sparkled. She was glad to see ht-r 
husband, and showed it in her pretty, half-emotional way. Morse bail - 
sometimes found himself wondering a little bitterl}’- whether, under 
any conceivable circumstances, Lady Betty w'ould be capable of taking 
a fiight beyond the circle of her own sweet superficial nature. He 
could not imagine her rising to such a height of passionate feeling as 
to be quite forgetful of what the Court might say, and to be quite insen¬ 
sible to the picturesque and the becoming. 

Lady Betty put her arm wdthin that of her husband in the most 
charmingly appropriating manner. She took him for granted, as she 
took for granted all the other facts in her pleasant life. It was not 
necessary to be effusive. “ Oh, ISandham, how nice of you ! I’m so 
tired, dear. We’ve had a horrid crossing. Let us get into the carriage 
and go off. John can find Maling and see about the luggage; ” and 
she gave the footman standing by a gracious little nod. 

When they were in the carriage driving homeward Morse kissed his 
wife, and she nestled to him for a moment, and said— 

‘ How nice it is to be in smoky London again! ” She asked one or 
two questions about home affairs and about the whereabouts of such 
and such of her friends, and she had a great deal to tell about Homburg 
gaieties and the "royal wedding, about a rumoured foreign alliance 
and a rumoured foreign appointment, and about the nice things which 
certain great personages had said to her. And then she heaved a sigh 
and w'as silent. 

“What makes you sigh, Betty?” asked Morse tenderly. 

“Nothing, dear. I’ve got a lot to ask you about by-and-by— 
political news, and how you have been getting on with your canvass 
and that. I was only th nking—it’s odd'isn’t it? that we should have 


^^PURSUING A PHANTOMS 191 

been leading such different lives—you and I, and that you should be 
so out of it, in all that has been interesting me. 

“ Well, dear,” said Morse, with a smile, “ if I am out of it as regards 
your Eoyalties, I think from the nature of things you’d have been still 
more out of your element among my working-men.” 

“ I think I begin to hate the working-man,” said Lady Betty, with 
a shiver; “especially since they have given him a vote. I think it is 
horrible for ws to have to truckle to the lower classes, as I suppose we 
must do now if we want our people to get in.” 

They had reached home. Later, Lady Betty having exchanged her 
travelling dress for a tea-gown of rich coloured Oriental stuff, in which 
she looked very young and very pretty, and more than ever like some 
bright tro]»ical bird, was sitting with Morse over the fire in her own 
boudoir. Almost all the other sitting-rooms were covered up with 
brown holland, for the house had been given over to work-people, and 
Lady Betty was only going to be a few days in London before setting 
off on a round of visits to great country houses. She was a little vexed 
at finding that she would have to make most of these visits alone. 
Morse had decided a short while before to contest a Tory stronghold 
in the south of England, keeping his own constituency, where he 
might consider himself safe, in reserve, and there were political meetings 
to be held, and preparations to be made for the battle. This he had 
been explaining to her. 

“I thought you’d have got some of that done before I came back, 
dear,” said Lady Betty, with a gesture of reproach. “ I’m afraid that 
you’ve been neglecting your duties just lately. But I suppose the 
duke’s shooting party was a temptation. Was that where my telegram 
found you, Sandham?” 

“ I did not go to the duke’s party,” replied Morse, speaking 
deliberately. “I went to Broraswold, and I have spent the last two 
days at the Priory-on-the-Water. That was where your telegram 
found me.” 

Lady Betty looked surprised. “The Priovy-on-thc-Water?” she 
repeated. “Oh, I know; the place that strange Mrs. Eustace Kenway 
insisted on scraping. Wasn’t it odd for you to go there, Sandham ? 
What was the attraction? Not Mrs. Eustace. I suppose it was the 
fair Koorali? ” 

Lady Betty’s light words made Morse wince with a faint sense of 
guilt; they hurt him. But his face was quite impassive as he answered 
quietly, “ I was very glad to have the chance of meeting Mrs. Crichton 
Kenway. That’s quite true, Betty. 1 looked upon myself as a sort of 
English godfather to her.” 

“Oh, my dear, all London knows how much you admired the 
Australian beauty. By the way, Sandham, people seem to he getting 
a little tired of her. She is rather stupid, don’t you think.? It was 
only her being new that made her take. It was something quite new, 
indeed, to see you in the character of a woman’s admirer, Sandham. 

I rather liked it, do you kr ow? It made you more like other pe' ple. 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


193 


I wasn’t the least wee bit jealous. I was quite proud of having brought 
her out; and didn’t I make things nice for her, as I promised?” 

“Yes, Betty,” he said, rising as he spoke, and looking down upon 
her with deep eyes. “ And I thank you, my dear, for your trust in me.” 

Something in his voice made Lady Betty glance up at him quickly. 
“Sandliam,” she exclaimed, “you are not looking as well as you did 
when I left. You seem to me to have aged.” 

“That’s natural enough,” said ]\Iorse, with an effort at lightness. 

“ At my time ot life, child, a few weeks of hard work and worry will 
make the difference of as many yeai’s, where grey hairs and wrinkles 
are in question. I am quite well, but I shall [U'obably look older still 
before the elections are over.” 

“Oh! the elections!” cried Lady Betty mournfully. “I detest 
politics now. I feel uncomfortable whenever they’re mentioned. And 
yet I used to be so interested in them. Of course, everybody belong¬ 
ing to me was in Parliament or mixed up with it all, and it seemed so 

natural when I married that my husband should be a politician-” 

She stopped suddenly, and sighed. 

“Go on, Betty,” said Morse. “Why do you detest politics now, 
and why does it seem less natural that your husband should be a 
politician ? ” 

Lady Betty hesitated a moment. “Yes, but a politician whom all 
my people and my friends think so mistaken, don’t you know; whose 
views are entirely out of harmony with those of my own class. Oh, 
Sandham, I didn’t want to say disagreeable things or tell you how 
troubled I have been,—^^just the first evening.” 

Morse stooped and puit his hand for a moment on the little dark head. 
“There you are wrong, Betty,” he said. “If there are disagreeable 
things to be talked over, it’s much best not to sleep on them. Political 
disagreeables can’t matter much anyhow; and if anyone has been 
troubling you, your husband has a right to know it at once. Speak 
out, dear.” 

But Lady Betty did not seem inclined to say at once what was in 
her mind. She took up a feather screen, and held it between her face 
and the fire, while she seemed to be looking through it, so fi.xed was 
her melancholy gaze. 

“I wish it was not the fashion fur women to canvass,” she said; 
“ they’re all doing it now. I hope you won’t w’ant me to go down with 
you to Claybiidge when the time comes, Sandham.” She turned her 
face up to him now, and tears were in her eyes. “I couldn’t. I think 
it’s horrid for a wdfe not to uphold her husband, and I admire the 
women who do it. But I can’t go to (flaybridge.” 

Morse laughed a little discordantly. “You speak, Betty, as if I 
w^ere a criminal who wanted you to stand beside him in the dock. I 
wonder if you would stand by me—so? I shan’t put you to that test, 
however, child.” 

“Oh, Sandham!” murmured Lady Betty. 

“Or to the platform test either,” he went on. “You don’t think 




^^PURSC/ING A phantom: 


193 


really that I coukl wish you to sully your delicate bloom by coaxing 
votes out of unwilling Tories? Oh no, Betty, my wife should be too 
loving and tender and poetic for that sort of thing. That is not my 
i<U‘a of a politician’s helpmate. I don’t care for canvassing women 
any more than for speech-making women. There used to be a proverb 
ill my part of the country about a whistling woman and a crowing hen. 
No; you need not canvass for me, and if this is all that troubles you, 
set your mind at rest.” 

“It is not all, Sandham,” said Lady Bett}'. She looked at him 
again, as he stood over her with the dark expression on his fiice. An 
ungenerous thought, a sort of hope, shot through her mind. IMight 
he not be one of those who, as it is phrased, ran with the hare and 
hunted with the hounds? In spite of his democratic principles, his 
professed disinterestedness, he had married Lord Germilion’s daughter, 
and this marriage had in a great measure opened out his career. It 
was quite conceivable that he should not wish his wife to be too 
completely identified with his political schemes. Was not she the 
contradiction to that horrible imputation of league with socialists and 
revolutionists which she had vaguely heard cast against him? A 
moment later she was ashamed of having harboured for an instant the 
passing thought. Morse had seated himself beside her, and his face 
was dark no longer. 

“Come, tell me, Betty, what is the matter?” he asked tenderly and 
with genuine anxiety. He looked into her eyes, which were wistful 
and sad, and he felt very affectionate to her, and not a little penitent 
His thoughts reverted to the trust she expressed in him a few moments 
ago. If faith were rooted there, what matter all other unfaith? He 
was fond of her—very fond ; and if the idea had been pressing harshly 
upon him of late that she was not quite so much the companion of his 
heart and of his thoughts as his wife ought to be, he could not but own 
to himself that there was a certain lack of loyalty in the admission, 
even in the very perception, of such a reality. 

Lady Betty seemed to become more herself again. She turned to 
him with a half-questioning, half-deprecating air. 

“Sandham, my dear, I have been hearing such things! I do wish 
you would tell me they are not true, and let me say so to my father 
and every one.” 

“What are these dreadful things, Betty?” 

“You are not anti-English, Sandham? You don’t want England 
humbled before foreign states, enemies, and all that ? You don’t hate 
the Court and the princes and princesses? You arc not a republican; 
not one of those horrible communists? Not really, Sandham—I mean 
really?” 

“ Who has been saying all this ? ” Morse’s brow darkened again, 
lie was wounded by the idea of his wife coming to him with her head 
full of things that had been said against him—in her own presence it 
would seem. 

Lady Betty furled and unfurled her screen. “ Well, they were not 


“Ti//: RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


194 

fill told to me—not directly. There were a lot of the political set at 
Homburg; and of course I read the papers, and your speeches, and 
what is thought of them. And peopled talked. It was half chaff. 
But papa hears of things seriously, don’t you know; and he has been 
telling me what his friends say. He was very much troubled, but I 
told him I was sure there was not a word of truth in the whole of it. 
And then he says that you are a republican, and that you don’t want 
England to fight.” 

“ Well, I’etty,” Morse said, with a melancholy sort of smile, “ I don’t 
know that I can quite authorize you to contradict your father. I am 
a republican on principle, or in theory, if you like; and I don’t want 
England to go to war just now and in such a cause. Is that all ? ” 

“But you are not a peaco-at-any-price man? Dear Sandham, you 
are not that? Why, think of all one’s relatives and friends in the 
army and the navy ; and the princes, soldiers and sailors. You couldn’t 
be that. Papa says no gentleman could be for peace at any price.” 

“I am not for peace at any price, Betty. There are many things I 
would go to war for. My dear, you have forgotten the heroic adventures 
of my early da^'s, I am afraid, although you used to say they were ever 
.VO interesting. I fought in a war myself once.” 

“Yes; long ago, when you were young,” Lady Betty said despond- 
in gly. “ But you are not for peace at any price—that you do say, 
Sandham ? I may tell papa and every one that, mayn’t I ? ” 

“ I don’t fancy Lord Germilion needs to be told that,” Morse said 
rather coldly. “ In England, if we don’t like a public man, we merely 
say he is f(;r peace at any price, and think we have disposed of him. 
I don’t fancy Lord Germilion and his friends really believe it of me.” 

“But,” e.xclaimed Lady Betty eagerly, “ they say if you become 
Prime Minister you will not let England go to war.” 

“Whether I become Prime Minister or not, Betty, I will always 
do my best to prevent England from going to war when war is not 
necessary or justifiable. I shall do my best to prevent this war, dear.” 

“Then you are against the Court,” Lady Betty said,'the colour 
dying out of her cheeks at the bare idea. 

Morse patted her cheek soothingly. He was determined that he 
would be very gentle with her. “My dear Betty, you don’t know 
what a dreadful thing you are saying. What do you think would be 
the outcry among the pople if it were supposed that to have a strong 
opinion against a particular policy, especially against a war policy” 
were to prove that a public man was against the Court? Talk of 
republicanism—why, my little wife, your doctrines, if they were correct, 
would make republicans of three-lourths of the English people.” 

“ I don’t understand you one bit,” Lady Betty answered ; and indeed 
she answered truly. “ But are you really a republican ? and do you 
want to get up a republican party? And are you going in with that 
unfortunate Masterson and men like that?” 

“ Why, Betty, 1 am exactly as I have always been since you knew 
me, and for long before. I have lived in republics and in communities 


^^PC/RSUING A PHANTOMS 195 

wliich are really republican, and life goes on there very well. 1 always 
tohl you my ideas were republican.” 

“ Yes ; but one’s ideas—that is nothing. I never thought you meant 
anything real in all that. 1 thought it looked odd and pretty and 
picturesque, and I liked it. But I never thought you really meant it, 
Sandhara—never, oh, never ! If I had-” She .stopped abruptly. 

“If you had, you wouldn’t have married me? Is that what you 
mean ? ” ho asked. 

She did not answer at once, but played with her screen for a moment 
or two. “ Sandham,” she exclaimed impulsively, “ you are not quite 
as nice to me as you used to be. You are so much graver and colder, 
and not so comfortable. 1 don’t know why it is, but things seem to 
have changed between us somehow. Wo don’t think alike, as we 
always used.” 

“Used we to think alike always?” he said, more to himself than 
to her. 

“And other people notice it,” Lady Betty continued in her light 
pretty way, stroking the feathers of her screen in a preoccupied 
inamici, as though she were stating a not very important fact. “ Ijenny 
said so to me not long ago.” 

“Lenny!” repeated Morse in a stern, astonished tone. “You 
talked to the boy Lenny about yourself and me?” 

Lady Betty laughed a little uneasily. “Well, not.seriously, dear. 
But you know Lenny has always had a notion that he would like to 
go into diplomacy—be secretary to some great public man or some¬ 
thing of the kind; and he wanted me to ask you, and so that was how 
the subject came up. You needn’t be vexed, Sandham. I fancy that 
you are a little impatient of Lenny. You don’t always take an interest 
in my toys.” 

“You have a great many, Betty. Lady Deveril and ‘copy’ ono 
month, women doctors another, studios and painters a third, Irish 

distress, American prima donnas, and-” he was going to say, 

“ Australian beauties,” thinking of that daughter of Sir Vesey Plympfon 
whom Lady Betty had “ run,” but stopped short for an instant, and 
added “mediaeval p)ge-boys, and so forth. I admit that your toys are 
harmless, Betty, and vou soon tire of them, so it does not matter, 
dear.” 

“ Now you are sarcastic and uncomfortable,” cried Lady Betty, 
“ and I don’t know what to make of you.” She seemed to be meditat¬ 
ing for a moment, and then said, “I think you are not quite just to 
me, Sandham. I should never tire of anything or anybody if only 
there did not always come a point in everything when more is expected 
from one than human nature—my nature, at any rate—can give.” 

He looked at her with a strange sort of wonder, an almost com¬ 
passionate interest, and seemed about to speak, but checked himself. 

“ For instance,” Lady Betty went on, “ you will say that I have 
tired of Lenny because I don’t mean to have him so much about me in 
future. It isn’t so in the least. I love the dear picturesque boy, and 



^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ ’ 


196 

I’d do anything for him, and shall miss him horribly—Lenny always 
made a diversion when anything awkward happened. But he wouldn’t 
remember that he was only just my pretty page. He got silly and 

sentimental and serious, and so-” She gave her shoulders a little 

shrug, and her dark eyes glanced up pathetically into her husband’s 
grave face. 

“ And so,” he repeated, with a melancholy smile. “ Yes, I under¬ 
stand, Betty. You don’t like things and people when they become 
serious. My political ideas interested you as long as you thought 
them only a picturesque background to the man you married ; but 
now that you find you have married the background as well as the 
man you are perplexed and frightened, my dear. Well, I am sorry— 
sorry that you should have been mistaken in me, sorry if I should 
have led you into any mistake. But you were mistaken. I always 
gave you my real opinions; I always meant wltat I said.” 

Lady Betty’s cheeks grew pale again. She had wandered a little 
away from the real trouble. “ But, Sandham, will you explain to me ” 
—she bent eagerly forward—“ I should like to be able to say something 
when people tell me disagreeable things.” 

“ I will try to explain,” he answered. 

“Do you really want to set up a republic in England and to upset 
the throne?” she asked, with cheeks still more blanched than before. 
Her idea of a republic was either a very low-class and vulgar place, 
where one’s coachman sat down to dinner with one, or a place where 
furies of women danced half-naked about the streets, bearing gory 
heads on the points of pikes. 

“ No, Betty,” Morse said, Avith a look of mingled compassion and pain, 
“ I don’t want to do anything of the kind. The English people seem 
to me well content as they are, and I Avould not put out a hand to 
disturb them for the sake of the tinest theory that ever was broached. 
You may tell Lord Geimilion that if you like; but I don’t suppose he 
will believe it.” 

“But if one is a republican one Avants to have a republic,” Lady 
Betty urged, Avith a certain amount of plaintive shrewdness. 

“ In consistency one ought to, I suppose; but life is all more or less 
a compromise, Betty—in politics, at any rate. I should be glad if the 
English people some day, at some suitable opportunity, were willing 
to try a republic; but I don’t want to try to force a republic on 
them.” 

“At some suitable opportunity!” Lady Betty exclaimed aghast. 
“ Does that mean at the end of the reign ? Stopping the succession ? 
Why, that is the very thing they Avere saying at papa’s. They Av^ere 
saying that some people—Mr. IMasterson at their head—Avere trying 
to get up a plot of the kind—paving the Avay for a rebellion, and that 
—oh, Sandham, my dear, they AA’ere saying that it Avas encouraged by 
—by-” 

“ By me, Betty ? ” Morse interrupted almost sternly. “They have 
said that of me, have they ? ” 


^^PURSUING A phantom:^ 197 

“ Not in my hearing,” Lady Betty answered, a little frightened by 
his look and his voice. “Of course I would not listen to anything of 
the kind. Papa told me they were saying it. But, of course, it is 
not true.” 

“ Do you think it is true, Betty ? ” 

“ My dear Sandham, no ; oh no! But, then, I never thought that 
you were really in earnest about being a republican, and all that.” 

“Exactly,” Morse said grimly; “and as you were mistaken in 
the one case there is no reason why you should not be mistaken in 
the other. I quite understand. Well, we have talked this over 
enough, I think. Never mind me, Betty ; I mean, don’t trouble about 
defending me. If they ask you whether it is true that I am concerned 
in a plot to assassinate the royal family and the bench of bishops, you 
can only say that you don’t know, dear; that you really don’t know. 
For you don’t, you see. Then you will be quite on the safe side, and 
you will have committed yourself to nothing.” 

There was a tone of scorn in his voice which he could not quite 
repress. But he looked at the little wistful face with the pure, 
frightened, anxious eyes, and an unspeakable feeling of pity welled up 
in his heart. She did not, then, understand him; she could not 
understand him at all—this bright humming-bird of society, this 
child-like woman of the world, gracious, graceful, sweet, and yet so 
incapable of sympathy with his own highest aspirations, his own 
deepest emotions. At the instant, Koorali’s phrase, “ I do not speak 
the language,” flashed through his mind. There was a language, too, 
which Lady Betty could not speak—the language Koorali knew 
so well. 

It was very sad ; but there was the truth, the unpitying, remorseless 
truth. lie bent to kiss her out of very sorrow for her and for himself. 
As he looked into her eyes he could not help thinking how curiously 
like Koorali she was; and then the strange thousht thrust itself into 
his mind that she was Koorali without a soul. Sometimes, in after¬ 
days, it seemed to him possible that he might have been drawn 
towards Lady Betty in the first instance by some vague perception of 
her likeness to the girl he had seen in the Australian dawn. Perhaps 
he had been all unconsciously seeking his lost ideal, pursuing his 
distant dream, when he was paying court to the brilliant young 
Englishwoman who afterwards became his wife ; and now he finds 
that she is not his ideal after all. In one of the stories of the forest 
Indians he had heard of a youth who passed his life in the pursuit of 
a phantom woman, always moving before him, never reached. Had 
he too been thus pursuing a phantom? 

She could not understand him ; she had never understood him—his 
wife I There was no help for that. He was cut to the heart, but he 
did not blame her; he only felt compassion for her. He kissed her 
on the forehead, and then left her. They parted not in anger, but in 
coldness. It was the first time they had ever parted in real coldness. 


198 


“rais RIGHT honourable:^ 


CHAPTER XXV. 

riNK SNOW. 

A PINK snow of telegrams was shedding itself softly all over England. 
The needles of the telegraph were clicking and pattering like an 
incessant shower of sleet and hail. It was the middle of November, 
and the general elections were going on ; and the pink shower was one 
of their necessary accompaniments. In the clubs, men were rushing 
eagerly up to every fresh strip of paper affixed to tlie walls of morning- 
rooms and corridors. The evening journals kept issuing new editions 
every half-hour. Congratulations and condolences were crossing each 
other; wild appeals for advice, for assistance, for the hurrying-up of 
voters, for demonstration of direct or indirect influence this, that, and 
the other way, were flying up from the boroughs and the counties to 
the political liead-quarters of the various parties in London. 

It was a time of merely pleasing excitement for those who had no 
friend or brother in the struggle and who were not themselves 
involved. But, then, a vast number of persons either were themselves 
involved or had some friend or brother thus situated. The political 
fortunes of men were being decided daily, hourly. The success of a 
life’s ambition, the sudden check to a promising career, the utter 
blight of hopes on wliich ail had been staked—these were the events 
which any moment’s message might announce by wire or telephone. 
Some seven hundred vacant seats to be filled; at least two candidates 
for almost every place ; each candidate representing an eager family 
and a large circle of friends, all of whom profess to wish him success, 
and some of whom think it absurd of him to want io get into the 
House of Commons, and hope in their hearts he may fail of his desire; 
each constituency containing so n;any ardent politicians and furious 
partisans, and unscrupulous wire-pullers, and poor-s])irited hangers-on 
pitifully hunting after temporary appointments paid at so much a 
day ; and messengers and cab-drivers and bill-stickers—all these, and 
a whole army of other “ unnamed demi-gods ”—to revive a phrase of 
Kossuth’s eloquent days—were personally interested in the struggle. 

Nominally, it was the old struggle between Liberals and Tories. 
But there was a new and a difierent issue involved this lime. There 
were two sections of the Liberal party—the old Whigs and the new 
Radicals or Democrats; and the question was which of these two 
sections was to come out the stronger after the elections and give laws 
to the other. The general impression was that the Tories would be 
worsted in any case. But that was not, after all, so important a 
matter. They were now in office only because the Liberals did not 
see their way to work together as one united i)arty. . If, after the 
elections, the same want of union should perchance prevail, the Tories 
would have to be allowed to remain for the time in office, even though 
they should be the Ministry of a minority. But it was understood 


PINK SNOW, 


199 

that the Liberals would among themselves abide by the decision of 
the constituencies. If the Whigs should come out the stronger, then 
the Radicals would be bound on their own principles to admit that the 
voice of the people was the voice of the gods, and to let the Whigs 
lead them—for the time, at least. If the decision were to be the 
other way, then the Whigs would have to do once more what they 
had so often done before, and consent to move on with the times and 
the Radicals. 

Then, again, there was another question—the war policy. Would 
the Radicals, if they came back in force, go for a war policy? Would 
^lorse go for it? He was denouncing it everywhere now; but if his 
jiarty came back powerlul enough to make him Prime Minister, would he 
not then bend to the will of the country and go in for a policy of war ? 

These were the questions disturbing the minds of men—and of 
women. There was one woman who watched the progress of events 
with the deepest and keenest interest—an interest all the deeper and 
the keener because it could find no relief in expression. Kooiali sat 
in her lonely home, and waited and wondered and hoped, like a 
solitary woman who listens for some sound to tell her that news is 
coming from a battle-field whereon fortunes dear to her heart are 
staked. The pink shower let fiill no flake on KooiMi. She received 
no letter or telegram from Morse. She did not expect any ; she knew 
he would not sen i any. She knew that it was right he should not 
send any; and yet she watched the hours anxiously. She wondered 
at her almost absolute isolation in the midst of that great struggle; 
and slie seemed to herself useless ; and life was drear. 

The Ciiehton Keiiways had been for some weeks settled in London. 
Crichton was now a gentleman at large, for his successor had arrived 
from South Britain, and was installed at the office in Victoria Street. 
Crichton was not altogether displeased at the opportunity given him 
for cultivating his country tastes and pursuits. He was gaining quite 
a reputation in the hunting-field, and had contrived to afford himself 
another hunter. He had had several invitations for partridge and 
pheasant shooting; and on the whole he was very well occupied and a 
good deal away from home. He had even been exercising his talents 
as an orator, and speaking for several of the advanced Liberal candi¬ 
dates at the elections. He cursed the want of means which prevented 
him from standing himself for a Lyndfordshire constituency; but even 
in this respect his luck had favoured him. Old Mrs. Kenway died 
just after the visit to the Pr ory which had been so memorable to 
Koo Mi, and the modest sum in ready money dropping in, as Crichton 
expressed it, “ at the very nick of time,” relieved him for the moment 
from his most pressing difiiciilties. The relief woidd not, he knew, be 
of long duration; the mountain of debt was still rolling up. But at 
at all "^events he was able to start a fresh account at his tailor’s, to 
throw a sop to the most rapacious of his Jewish creditors, and to pay 
off his overdraft at the bank and restore confidence to the heart of Mr. 
Bonhote, the manager. 


200 


THE RIGHT HONOURABLET 


ill regard to Morse and Koorali, and the bettering of his own pros¬ 
pects, Crichton still thought it good policy to let matters slide, or seem 
to do so. Koorali, on her side, was true to her principle of self-repres¬ 
sion ; and since that night at the Priory her relations with her husband 
had been friendly on the surface. She saw so much less of him, that 
it was comparatively easy to keep on the conventional ]'lane. And 
then the elections were the absorbing subject of interest. Nothing 
could be done or decided about their future till the country had 
declared for or against the Ministry in power; for or against Morse 
and his Piadicals. Crichton was as keenly excited over the political 
situation as a gambler whose fortune depends upon the turn of the 
wheel, but he tried to make his excitement appear to be of a patriotic 
and purely impersonal kind. He began to fancy himself an authority 
on political questions, talked as if he were behind the scenes; and 
indeed, with the egotism which was his habitual happiness, believed 
that his Lyndfordshire speeches and an article he wrote about this 
time in one of the monthlies would aid considerably in swaying the 
destinies of England—it might almost be said, of Europe. 

He had proclaimed himself an advanced Liberal, but he avoided as 
much as possible committing himself upon the war question. He was 
anxious that there might .'“till be a loophole for him, should the Tory 
or moderate Liberal interest predominate. He read every word uttered 
by the prominent men of both parties—or rather of the three parties, 
lor Morse and his “Peaceful Progressionists,” as they were sometimes 
called, threatened the disintegration of the Liberal party. 

In his heart of hearts Ken way did not quite know whether he wished 
IMoise to succeed or not. Unquestionably, if Morse did succeed there 
would be a grand chance for Kenway’s bettered fortunes. But, then, 
even if Morse came out strong after the elections, might he not throw 
his opportunities away on some mad scruple; and, then, would not 
Kenway be “ altogether out of it,” to use his own phrase V Would it 
not be better if he had “ gone dead ” with the more moderate Liberals 
from the first; or, indeed, with the Tories? He felt angry with Morse 
sometimes, as if Morse had talked him into the course he liad adopted. 
Moreover, he felt bitterly jealous of Morse, simple because he knew 
that Koorali thought Morse a hero, and regarded him—her husband— 
in no such heroic light. Even while he was throwing Koorali in 
Morse’s way, he hated Morse for that very reason. He hated Morse 
because he did not get at once all the advantages he hoped for through 
KoorMi’s influence; he would perhaps have hated him still more if he 
had got them. Had he been a man of deeper feeling for good or for 
ill, life would have been intolerable to him. But an indulgent Heaven 
had endowed him with a happy levity of nature; and while there was 
a pleasant country house open to him, and an excellent dinner to be 
had now and then, and any chance, however airy, of to-morrow mend¬ 
ing the luck of to-day, Ken way could never feel quite out of sorts with 
the world. He was, in one regard, the very opposite to poor Enoch 
Arden. Enoch, we are told, “ was not all unhappy ; his resolve sus- 


PINK SNOW, 201 

tained him.” Kenway was not all unhappy; his lack of resolve 
sustained him. 

Koorali saw almost nothing of Morse now, heard nothing of him, 
except through the papers and through Lady Betty, who was in 
London, and came several times to see her. There was, to KoorMi, a 
mournful interest in these visits. Morse’s wife, lovely, sweet, and 
unstable—fresh from some aristocratic drawing-room where Jingoism 
had been rampant and the Ultra-Radicals denounced as would-be 
destroyers of England’s supremacy and enemies of the sovereign—was 
a strange, sad study to Koorali. Lady Betty talked to Koorali—an 
outsider and, to her, half a foreigner—as she would not have talked to 
one of her own set; and she allowed this to be apparent in a pretty, 
simple way, which touched the Australian woman. 

Lady Betty was in a curious, half-elated, halt-distrustful frame of 
mind. She was elated at the extent of her husband’s influence over 
the nation, alarmed at the effect it might have upon their own imme¬ 
diate surroundings. Lady Betty was entirely conservative in tendency 
and education, and had never felt any true sympathy with her hus¬ 
band’s aims—had never even understood what they were. Till now 
that had mattered little. There had been no need for husband and 
wife to take a definite stand together. Lady Betty had lived on the 
surface of society, and, in a measure, did Morse service by her eclec¬ 
ticism. It was understood that in Lady Betty’s drawing-room all 
kinds of extremists were to be found picturesquely grouped as in a 
sort of political and social kaleidoscope. Morse had fidlen into a 
becoming attitude, and till the break-up of the Administration to 
which he belonged. Lady Betty had never felt any real uneasiness 
as to his political career. But now that the party phrases had become 
battle-cries, now that England was racked to its very centre by party 
strife, now that Morse had steered boldly to the front, taking the wind 
out of the sails of other leading Radicals, Lady Betty began to feel 
frightened and uncomfortable. She fancied herself less popular in the 
Court and aristocratic circles, which were all in favour of war and 
resentful of the growth of a democratic party. Some high personages 
remonstrated with Lady Betty upon her husband’s utterances. She 
wished him to be a Prime Minister, but she did not wish him to be a 
Prime Minister notoriously out of favour at Court. Her own people 
were bitterly opposed to all Morse’s views; Lord Forrest, the only 
one who might have had something to say in their defence, had gone 
abroad, openly declaring that he wanted to be out of the way till the 
hurly-burly was done. Wherever she went. Lady Betty heard of 
nothing but politics, and was made to feel herself upon the wrong side. 
It was quite a new experience for her, and not a pleasant one. Then, 
somehow, there had crept about rumours of an alliance between Morse 
and the Socialists, and of dark, revolutionary plans; and poor Lady 
Betty, knowing her husband’s friendship with Masterson, had qualms 
of doubt and fear, and when embarrassing little incidents occurred 
could not laugh them off, as had been her custom. Nor could she talk 
14 


202 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


tverythin" over frankly with Morse. A curious cliill h ul crept up 
between them, and she had a feeling of separateness from him and of 
inability to enter into his mood. He was not less gentle and con¬ 
siderate, not less affectionate—indeed, sometimes his manner had a 
melancholy tenderness which set her wondering a little. It was just 
a faint indication of some want of generosity in Lady Betty’s nature 
that she accepted it as an acknowledgment of wrong to her—of course, 
she thought, it was a wrong that he should not modify his attitude a 
little in deference to her opinions and associations and friends. Lady 
Betty was not sensitive enough to be alive to what was passing through 
Morse’s mind, but he was able to read hers. It is the curse of firmly 
strung natures, that an impression has sometimes the determining 
strength of an act with them, and that they cannot close mind and 
eye against impressions. To paint well, it is said, we should not see 
too well, should not have eyes that take in every detail. To get on 
well in life one should be mentally shortsighted. 

“ Dear Mrs. Kenway,” Lady 13 etty said one day to Koor^li, “you 
ought to be very thankful that your husband is not a Radical—at 
least, I suppose he is one—but not too advanced; and, then, he isn’t 
in Parliament, or in the heart of things, don’t you know.” 

“I think I should be very thankful and very proud if my husband 
were ‘ in the heart of things ’ here, Lady Betty,” answered KoorMi, 
smiling a little sadly. 

“You are a republican—oh yes, I know”—said Lady Betty. “I 
don’t mind it at all in you. I think you used to encourage my hus¬ 
band a little in his notions, and I’ve heard you agree with the American 
Minister that monarchy is only ‘ dressed-up dummyism.’ That sort of 
thing is quite natural and picturesque in Australians and Americans, 
but, of course, it is different with us. The Tories were in power before 
1 married. And then, you see, there’s the result of the Court training 
that Sandham used to tease me about.” Lady Betty laughed softly. 
“ These elections and the war have made people so horribly in earnest, 
and I think you have reason, Mrs. Kenway, to be thankful that your 
husband is not the future Radical Prime Minister who, every one says, 
is going to turn England topsy-turvy.” 

“ Every one. Lady Betty?” exclaimed Koorali with warmth. “A 
Radical Prime Minister must be the choice of the nation.” 

“ Oh, well! ” said Lady Betty, with a pretty little shrug of her 
.shoulders, “ I think * the nation ’ is all very well as an abstract 
quantity, don’t you know ? and a faithful shepherd is very picturesque 
in open-air theatricals at Coombe and that sort of thing; but when it 
comes to letting haymakers settle our foreign policy for us—well, I 
think I prefer the feudal system.” 

“It is not the agricultural labourers who disagree wuth you,” said 
Koorali. “ They are all voting against the farmers, who want peace. 
It’s the farmers and the educated working-men of the cities. Lady 
Betty, that are supporting your husband.” 

“ My dear Mrs. Kenway, you do know about it. You know ever so 


THE PROGRESSIVE CLUB, 


203 

much more than I do. Sandham must have found you a much apter 
pupil than ever he found me, I am afraid.” 

“ I had the advantage of knowing nothing and of havins: no opinions 
formed,” Koorali said, with a smile. “ My mind was a blank sheet of 
paper.” 

“ Until Sandham wrote on it,” Lady Betty answered graciously, and 
supplying for Koorali’s words an ap|)lication Koorali had not thought 
of giving them. “ Yes; it docs make a difference. I was brought up 
in such a way—in a narrow way, I dare say; but one can’t help the 
influences that surround one at the beginning. Sometimes 1 wish 
Sandham had converted me ; for I don’t suppose now I could ever 
have converted him. Of course one would like to feel exactly as one’s 
husband felt; and to go with him in everything. But I don’t think 
he ever tried to convert me; I really don’t believe he ever did. Anti, 
of course, if he did not try, how was I to know that he wanted me to 
be anything other than what I was? ” 

Lady Betty was arguing thus to herself more than to Koorali, arguing 
in a half-plaintive, half-complaining sort of way. Kooikli felt deeply 
touched. It might have been well, she thought, if Lady Betty’s hus¬ 
band had tried to bring her over to his own views; and yet she could 
easily understand how a strong man would prefer to spare that sweet, 
that gently frivolous nature the trouble of a political conversion or a 
I)olitical education. It is the generous mistake of the strong, when 
the strong are generous, to fancy tliat the weak can by any manner of 
protection be enabled to evade the perplexities of the life that is around 
them, and that are, like the east wind, sure to find their way in. 


CHAPTER XXVL 

TJIE PIIOGRESSIVE CLUB. 

The elections were over and Morse’s hopes of an independent party 
were gone. He had had up to the last a faint belief that it would be 
possible to get together after the elections, and by virtue of their 
mandate, a party strong enough to repudiate the foreign policy of the 
Government and to save the country from war. The elections killed 
this hope. The result was that the Conservative party was in a hope¬ 
less minorit3^ The Liberals united would be in a strong majority; 
and of the two sections which made up the party, Morse’s friends were 
much th'e stronger. Morse was the coming Prime Minister, every one 
said. All eyes turned to him. It became known that the Govern¬ 
ment would meet the new Parliament, and would hold on until a vote 
of confidence ejected them. This would happen almost at once, as a 
matter of course, people said; and then would come the Liberal party, 
led by a Radical Prime Minister. “ Happy man, Morse! ” the world 
said. ^‘Not yet quite fort^'-five years old, and already at the height of 


204 


^^THE RIGHT HONOUR ABLER 


liis ambition! Prime Minister—the first Padical Prime Minister of 
England!” Wlien the news was telegraphed to South Britain, the 
capital of the colony was illuminated iri honour of the triumph of the 
man who had once been at the head of the Government there. 

Ninety-nine men out of every hundred hailed Morse already as 
Prime Minister. Yes; but the hundredth man—as Morse himself 
would have put it—the hundredth man, who knew better, what did 
he say? Morse had already made up his mind. The majority of the 
Liberal party was in favour of a war policy; and Morse would not be 
the Minister of a war policy ; at least, under such conditions. He was 
no peace-at-any-price man; he was convinced that peace had some¬ 
times many evils far worse than war. He did not believe that life, 
mere breath, is so great a thing as to be worth keeping at the sacrifice 
of any noble purpose, or the expense of any national cause. But he 
•was convinced that war just then, and war for such a purpose, would 
be unjust; that it would come as the result of a whole system of policy 
of which he heartily disapproved; which he detested; and there was 
but one course open to him. 

Morse came up to town immediately after his own re-election. 
Lady Betty, who had gone to her father’s place during the last part of 
the struggle, did not hasten up. She had heard Morse’s decision from 
him, and she was hurt and troubled by it. She could not understand 
it; she could not understand him. She "w^as very much displeased 
with him in her pretty pouting little way. There had been another 
small scene between tl)em, in which she had implored him, with all the 
earnestness and logic she had at command, to yield to the ])ressure of 
public opinion, to seize his opportunity, to espouse the war policy and 
ingratiate himself with the Court party, and to justify his change of 
front by the changed aspect of the situation. He had listened to her 
arguments and her entreaties, and had coldly, almost sternly, refused. 
Lady Betty was deeply hurt by the refusal; she thought she had a 
1 ight to ask, and that he ought to do what she asked him so earnestly 
to do. If he were to ask her to do anything, would she not do it? 
Ah, yes, indeed she would. She wanted him to be Prime Minister. 
She wanted to flaunt him and his great position in the faces of the 
relatives who once tried to look down on him; and she wanted him 
to be at the head of a War Ministry. For all her sweetness and 
gentleness her bosom throbbed at the thought of England redeeming 
all her past glory and as victorious in a great war. Would not her 
father and all her relatives be proud of her husband then ? And she 
wanted Morse to give ministerial places to ever so many of her friends. 
There were some dear women to whom she had already all but pro¬ 
mised places in the Ministry for their clever husbands. Moreover, 
some of the things Lady Betty had been hearing at her father’s rankled 
more and more in her mind. Lord Germilion’s friends would keep 
saying that it was so un-English to think of truckling to any European 
power; and she was particularly anxious that her husband should 
prove himself a thorough Englishman, with plenty of fight in him. 


THE PROGRESSIVE CLUB. 


205 

So Lady Betty remained at her father’s in the country, and Morse came 
up to town. 

Among the letters he found awaiting him was one from “ The 
Progressive Club.” The Progressive Club was a peculiar sort of 
institution. It had been started some years before, for the pur[)Ose of 
spreading the views of intellectual democracy among the more educated 
classes. Its arena was not very large, to be sure. The club consisted 
of twenty-four members, of whom half were chosen from within and 
half chosen from without the House of Commons. Among the latter 
half women were eligible for election, and there were, in fact, several 
ladies in the club. The propaganda was carried on in a very easy and 
unjiretentious way. The club dined together several times in each 
session and discussed the political topics of the hour. As regards 
principles there was not usually much opening for controversy. It 
was a case of preaching to the converted ; but on expediency, detail, 
the lime when, and manner how, and so forth, often very animated 
discussion took place. There was no speech-making; the members 
sat round the table after dinner and each gave an opinion on the pre¬ 
scribed subject in turn. The club had no fixed habitation. It ranged 
among a few chosen hotels and restaurants in the winter and spring, 
and it expanded to the Ship at Greenwich, or the Star ami Garter, 
llichmond, in the summer. One of its fundamental principles was 
that no member must hold office in a Government. The mere fact of 
his taking a place in an Administration disqualified him. Morse had 
been a member of the club for some years, and had then been dis- 
c^ualified by his acceptance of a place in the late Government. Now 
lie was again a member, having been elected at once—or at least on 
the fir-*t vacancy, when his colleagues and himself went out of office ; 
and just now everybody was saying that he was about to be disquali¬ 
fied again. The letter Morse found awaiting him was an invitation to 
attend a dinner of the club that very day. 

All right,” Morse said to himself. “As well there as anywhere 
else; better there, perhaps, than anywhere else. The sooner it is 
known the less trouble there will be. I don’t want to be ‘ sent 
for.’ ” 

It was a Sunday; and the dinner of the club was appointed for that 
day because it was thought that the coming week would probably 
bring forth some important political combinations, and the club wanted 
to discuss them beforehand. The pariicular subject set down for that 
evening's discussion was “ The Duty of a lladical under the Present 
Political Conditions.” It was the title of the subject that decided 
Morse on going to the dinner. The club might not, perhaps, be very 
important as a political organization; but some of its members were 
men of undoubted political capacity and'position. One or two were 
men who would assuredly expect to be called upon to take part in an 
Administration formed by Morse. So Morse, resolved that he would 
keep out of the way of any of his political acquaintances until he had 
t.aid his say at the dinner of the Progressive Club. He would hav-- 


2 o6 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


longed to call on KoorMi. He l?new she was at home. He thought 
perhaps she would expect to see him. If she knew that he had re¬ 
turned to town, he thought she would be disappointed if he did not go 
to see her. He would have dearly liked to tell her first of his fixed 
determination. She 'would understand it, he knew, he well knew. 
Yet it did not seem to him as if he ought to go to see her, as if he 
could go to see her. Not one word of love had ever been spoken 
between them. He might have gone to see her now as well as in other 
days, and no one would have thought anything about it. But he 
could not go. To do so would not be in accord with that code of duty 
he had prescribed for himself, and which had been tacitly understood 
between them. He knew that things were not now as they had been 
before those days in Lyndfordshire. He knew that he had come to 
think far too much about her ; and the terrible thought, half fear, half 
certainty, that she had come to think too much about him, was always 
present in his mind. “No,” he said to himself, “I’ll not see her 
again, unless chance should throw us together in (he ordinary way— 
I’ll not go to see her.” 

He read a heap of letters and papers, and he saw no one. Then he 
felt weary of reading and went out into the Park. It was, as has been 
said, a Sunday; the time was now not long past noon. It was a fine 
cheery winter day, and a soft sun seemed almost as if it were moulded 
into a bank of golden cloud and mist. The Park was full of people ; 
not merely fashionable people of the Bow, but eager, excited groups of 
unfashionable persons as well. Morse looked with curiosity at each 
group and scene as he passed it. Here there was a Salvationist preach¬ 
ing to his crowd, and calling on them to arise and be converted ; there 
a social democrat harangued his little group, and denounced the 
political and social laws which make the working-man and the work¬ 
ing-man’s wife and daughter the victims of the capitalist. In another 
place a Peace Society lecturer held forth on the horrors of war, and 
called on all who loved the peace and prosperity of their native land 
to oppose any and every Minister who strove to drive the country over 
the precipice and into a great continental struggle. Here and there a 
republican orator dilated on the luxury of Courts, and made sfiecial 
reference to the Civil List and the misery of the poor. Under the 
trees the question of Mr. Bradlaugh’s election was vehemently e.x- 
])ounded and fiercely argued. Far away the smart [ledestrians in the 
Park were beginning to pace their formal monotonous promenade. 
The preachers, orators, and audiences were nothing to them. The 
preachers might have been preaching, the orators spouting, the 
audiences wide-mouthed listening, for successive Sundays in many 
years so far as they were concerned. They would have seen, perhaps, 
that something was going on, but they would never have taken the 
trouble to ask or to think about it, or w'hat it meant, or what it was. 
This impressed itself upon the mind of Morse as he stood to hear what 
one of the speech-makers had to say. “Are \ve not still the two 
nations?” he aske<l himself, “ just the same as when Disraeli wrote 


THE PROGRESSIVE CLUB. 


207 

‘Sybil’? The uatiou which amuses itself; the nation which works 
and suffers.” 

Few men could be less egotistic or self-conscious than Morse. It 
did not occur to him while he was standing on the verge of the crowd 
that he was a conspicuous public personage, and that some one would 
be sure to recognize him. He was for the moment not in the politi¬ 
cian’s mood. He had become a dreamer again, and he was meditating 
vaguely over the prospects of these two nations settled side by side, . 
and yet to all appearance divided hopelessly in interests and feelings. 
Suddenly ho heard his name called out; first by one voice, then by 
another, and then by the whole crowd; and he soon saw that the 
crowd was swelled by another crowd, and yet another. In fact, he 
found himself surrounded by a great throng, the centre of a large 
popular meeting, and the meeting was shouting as with one throat for 
him to address them. 

Morse had no more reverence for the dignity of statesmanship than 
Macaulay had for the dignity of history. He did not see any reason 
why a man who had once been a Cabinet Minister should not speak to 
a meeting of his fellow-countrymen in the open air. Without troub¬ 
ling himself to think about the matter, he accepted the invitation, 
mounted the extemporized platform, and found himself delivering a 
speech to a Sunday meeting in Hyde Park. 

He had the eloquence of clear purpose and strong straightforward 
utterance, with a certain flavour of the emotional, and even the poetic, 
which lifted him from the conventional and the commonplace. 

“ Desist from the denunciation of the rich,” he said ; “ they can’t 
help being rich any more than you can help being poor. You don’t want 
them to give you any of their money; you would not take it, I hope. 
You are poor, most of you, but you are not paupers or beggars. What 
we want is a better system; abetter adjustment of burdens; more 
freedom to help ourselves; more room; more light; more air; more 
elasticity. We want a policy which shall not be the policy of the 
jdaceman and the partisan. We want to have the people of these 
countries thought of and cared for, in the first place. I am sorry it 
the Eastern Question is not all right; but I am much more sorry for 
the condition of things in the East End of London. That is my 
Eastern question. The Greeks have my sympatldes; but England’s 
business just now is with the unemployed poor here, at home. 
England’s j9 re.s%eYes; I long to see England’s made to 

shine to all the world—the of a nation with all its classes 

united, industrious, and happy. I long to see England crowned with 
glory ; the glory of honesty, happiness, and peace ; a. prestige of which 
the light shall shine for the guidance of all the nations of the earth.” 

The whole crowd took up the full meaning of his words and cheered 
tumultuously. Masterson, haranguing his own little group under 
some distant trees, his long grey locks floating in the wind, found 
himself all but deserted, and stopped in the uihldle of his oration to 
ask what was going on. He was told that Mr, Morse was addressing 


2 o8 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


the people, and was declaring agninst foreign wars; and Masterson 
would have liked to run and kiss Morse’s feet. He did indeed bring 
his speech to a speedy close, and hastened to where he was told Morse 
was speaking; hut by the time he got there the speech was over and 
Morse was gone. 

That evening the news was all over London that ^lorse had been 
addressiu'J a public meeting under the Ileformers’ Tree in Hyde Park; 
and elderly politicians Avondered what the world was coming to, and 
dowagers shook their heads and declared that they felt so sorry, oh, 
so very, very sorry, for poor dear Lady Betty! It must be such a 
grief to her, they said; but then they added that they always expected 
something of the kind. You can’t marry a man like that, a republican 
and a democrat, and Heaven knows what else, without having to 
suller for it. Some hoped poor Lord Germillion would not come to 
know of it; and others asked. Would it not be well to write to him 
at or'ce, and tell him of it, and see whether something could not be 
done? 

Meanwhile Morse, wholly indifferent to what the dowagers and the 
elderly politicians might be saying about him, made his way to the 
quarters of the Progressive Club, 'i'he club held this day’s meeting 
in a great new gloomy-looking hotel. Members of the club did not 
dress for dinner; a fiict which rather disconcerted Lady Deveril, who 
had recently been elected, and who was proud of her aims and 
shoulders. Lady Deveril had had a quarrel with the Dames of the 
Primrose League, and suddenly found herself a convinced Eadical. 
She was understood to be engaged in the production of a political 
novel; and she had succeeded in getting herself elected to fill a vacancy 
on the roll of members of the Progressive Club. This was her first 
day of dining with the club. 

There were three ladies present this day besides Lady Deveiil. 
There was Lady Constance Arklow, daughter-in-law of a great Whig 
peer, the heaviness of whose Whig dogmatism was believed to have 
driven Lady Constance into incurable Padicalism. She had a rather 
mannish air of independence, a sallow face, a habit of wrinkling up 
her eyes, and a generally humorous look. Not that she was in the 
least bit humorous. She took life rather seriously. Lady Constance 
was revolutionary in everything; no institution was sacred from her 
regenerating curiosity. She was the authoress of a work on “ Poly¬ 
gamy and Pol3'andry in Civilized and Uncivilized Nations,” which 
was understood to treat its subjects in a cool, scientific sort of way. 

Mrs. lleginald Falconer was an advocate of woman’s lights; but 
she was entirely unlike the woman’s rights’ advocate of the conven¬ 
tional type, the caricaturist’s pattern. She was a pretty, bright, win¬ 
some young woman; a slender creature, who prattled so pleasantly 
and artlessly, and got off such smart and shining little epigrams, that 
she might have beguiled even an old bachelor into a momentary weak¬ 
ness for the cause she so bcAvitchingly advocated, Mr. Piercy, the 
scientist, alone was proof against her arguments and her fasc nations. 


THE PROGRESSIVE CLUB. 


209 

“I don’t see the use of giving children sweets overnight in order to 
give them a black dose in the morning,” was his somewhat gruff reply 
to Mrs. Falconer’s sweet appeal. 

She turned away with a shrug of her shapely shoulders to greet a 
more hopeful convert. 

The other lady, with the face of an enthusiastic St. Monica, was 
i\Irs. Gage, who had a seat on one of the metropolitan school boards, 
and who had become known to the world by her persevering advocacy 
of a scheme for the amalgamation of all the churches into one, on 
the principle of general and equal compromise, each giving up a little 
of its own belief in consideration of a similar surrender made by every 
other. When IMorse came into the room Mrs. Gage was earnestly 
endeavouring to induce Father St. Maurice to admit the principles on 
which she based her scheme. He listened to her with a sweet, com¬ 
passionate patience, which was in itself an interesting study. 

There was a little flutter when Morse entered. “ The hero of the 
hour,” murmured Lady Deveril; and she had sympathetic inquiries to 
make concerning dear Lady I 3 etty, which rather irritated Morse. 
There were also some inquiries for Mrs. Kenway. It had been 
rumoured that KoorMi was to be elected a member of the Progressive 
Club. A woman said to enjoy the confidence of the coming Prime 
Minister demands some consideration. The mention of Koorali’s nante 
grated upon Morse still more. He escap(d from the subject, and 
congratulated Lady Deveril upon having, metaphorically speaking, 
exchanged the rea))ing hook for the sword, anil upon having given up 
the mild pursuit of “copy” in fashionable drawing-rooms for the more 
exciting study of politics. 

The men of the party mustered stronger than the women, and were 
all more or less figures in London life, and liable at this crisis to 
attacks from interviewers. Perhaps one of the most influential persons 
was the editor of a great dally newspaper. A flash of something more 
than interest passed over his imperturbable face as Morse nodded to 
him. But he only stroked his beard reflectively, and began talking 
to his next neighbour of a volume of memoirs that had lately come 
out. He never hunted for information, though he got it earlier than 
any other editor in London, but waited, like the spider in his web, 
concealing his rapacious instinct under'a sort of literary priggisrn. 
He wrote biographies in his leisure hours, and had started a school 
of doctrinaires, who wrote biographies, too, and laid down the law on 
everything. 

Two younger sons were in the party, each of whom had gone into 
training for office, and both of whom had got so far as to be actually 
in the House of Commons. Foreign affairs gave Lord Albert Folger 
his chosen field. Lord Albert regarded the world as his artichoke, to 
be devoured leaf by leaf. Wherever there was a war he hurried to the 
scene of battle. If an insurrection broke out anywhere. Lord Albert 
Folger was a spectator of the progress of events as quickly as steamer, 
train, horse, mu'e, came], or ostrich could carry him to the spot, ff'lie 


210 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE!' 


moment some new man started up in foreign politics anywhere, Lord 
Albert went for him, was introduced to him, compared views with 
him, and came home and talked about him in the House of Commons, 
and wrote about him in the newspapers. He was well acquainted with 
Arabi Pasha, had bad more than one conversation with Mr. O’Donovan 
llossa, and tried to cheer up the latest hours of Louis lliel. He made 
an etibrt to get to speech of the Mahdi in the Mahdi’s lifetime, and 
got as far as Dongola, when he was mistaken for a French renegade 
aud stopped and sent back to Cairo. 

Lord Albert had lately become a devoted adherent of Morse and 
his fortunes, and saw himself, in anticipation, Under-Secretary for 
Foreign Affairs, with his chief in the House of Lords—master of the 
situation, as Lord Beaconsfield describes the holder of so enviable 
a position. He was particularly anxious to see Morse to-day, because 
he hoped to get from him, in an indirect way, some idea as to whether 
there would be time f)r him to run to Athens and see how things 
wore really looking there, before anything serious was done in 
Parliament. 

The Honourable Stephen Sinclair, a young man with one of those 
saturnine countenances which express a lofty contempt for all things 
created, had gone into training in a different sort of way. He was for 
mastering facts and figures. He had amassed the greatest amoui.t of 
inaccurate statistical information acquired by any living man. There 
was no subject open to human study or even human fancy on which 
he had not figures to give. Ilis knowledge was offensive. He was 
only happy when he was showing people that they were all wrong 
about everything. Since he came into the room he had accomplished 
two gratifying feats. He had put Mr. Piercy into a passion by endea¬ 
vouring to prove to him that he was utterly mistaken about a scientific 
question, to the study of which Mr. Piercy had devoted about half his 
life; and Mr. Piercy was sixty-four, while Mr. Sinclair was only 
twenty-six. Then he addressed himself to Lady Constance Arklow, 
and made her almost cry by insisting that the figures on which she 
had founded the greater part of the theories developed in her book 
were altogether erroneous, and by giving her what he assured her she 
would find to be the right figures, and which would prove to demon¬ 
stration the very contrary of all that she had asserted. After this 
Mr. Sinclair bounced briskly about the room, putting out people’s 
theories here and there, as if they were so many candles he was sent 
to extinguish. 

There was a Scottish professor, whose principal political theme was 
proi)ortional representation, and who commonly demonstrated the 
simplicity and clearness of his system with a lucidity which mad^ 
unfortunate listeners, trying their best to understand it, become 
]^ossessed with the fearsome idea that they were getting softening of 
the brain. There was a man whose theme was India, of which he 
regarded England as a mere dependency. There was an advocate cf 
])('ace, a hai>dsomc, grave man, widi a full white beard and mou-tache 


THE PROGRESSIVE CLUB. 


211 


And a face which reminded one of some portrait of a Venetian senator, 
and suggested that its owner ought to be attired in black velvet. The 
business in life of this politician was to write treatises and make 
speeches on the wisdom of universal disarmament, and the establish¬ 
ment of an international council, composed of one delegate from each 
of the nations of the world, civilized and uncivilized alike, for the 
settlement of all disputes. He had convinced himself that the Great 
Pyramid was intended to be regarded as the centre of the earth, and 
he therefore proposed that the council of all nations should assemble 
at its base. One incidental blessing which he hoped to bring out by 
his international council was the adoption of an international language. 
He justly argued that as the council swelled in numbers, and began to 
receive delegate after delegate, from the various peoples and, tribes, it 
would be found that some of the delegates did not understand what 
others were saying. It would, therefore, be needful to adopt some 
common form of discourse, ami each delegate as he returned to his 
home would naturally teach this language to his own people. The 
result Mmuld be the gradual institution of one tongue common to all 
the nations of the earth. He sometimes admitted, w.th a sigh, that 
he did not expect to have this great object accomplished in his life¬ 
time. 

The dinner was held in a great bare room, with a painted ceiling 
and a good deal of ornamentation and tarnished gilding about it; but 
at the same time an air of sumptuousness was displayed in the hot¬ 
house flowers and the table appointments, for the Progressive Club 
prided itself upon being in advance of seasons and upon the recherche 
nature generally of its repasts. 

The club appointed each day a chairman to preside at the dinner- 
table and the subsequent discussion. The choice this time fell on Mr. 
Weatherby Cutts, a person of great promise it was understood, who 
had just been elected to Parliament. Mr. Weatherby Cutts was from 
the provinces, but had now settled himself and his family in town. 
He was a big, florid man, rather what the Americans would call fleshy 
than fat. He was provincial of the provincial in his manners. He 
was argumentative, dogmatic, aggressive; a man evidently determined 
not under any conditions to be done by anybody, and who was still 
under the impression that all London had entered into a conspiracy to 
do him. His great ambition was to live in London, and at the same 
time to show to all Londoners how utterly inferior they were in every¬ 
thing to the people of the great provincial town from which he came, 
Mr. Cutts had long been accustomed to carry all before him at the 
school board and in the town council of his native city, and he would 
have given evidence of this habitude if he had been suddenly intro¬ 
duced into the midst of a congress of great ambassadors, a conclav« 
of cardinals, or what Napoleon promised to Talma, a pitful of kings. 

Mr. Cutts bullied the waiters a good deal during the dinner; and 
indeed, he occasionally bullied the guests as well, if they sho\ved any 
inclinatinn to express any satisfaction with the way in which things 


212 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


were done in that hotel. Mr. Cutts would not allow any such expres¬ 
sions of approval to pass without loudly making it known that that 
sort of thing might do in London, but it would not ho endured in 
his native tow'n. One moment of fearful crisis came. The bill of faro 
spoke of asjjaragus with the roast, whereas the waiters were handing 
round sea-kale. This was a clear case for the dignity of the chairman 
to assert h.^elf. Mr. Cutts summoned the head waiter; he would not 
condescend to express his remonstrance to any mere underling. The 
head waiter came and stood meekly ; his head a little on one side, ond 
inclined towards Mr. Cutts, a listening attitude with deference thrown 
in. Mr. Cutts sternly asked why one vegetable was in the bill of fare 
and another on the tables. The head waiter did not know ; supposed 
there had been an alteration made. 

“ By whose authority, sir?” Mr. Cutts demanded, with folded arms 
and knitted brows. “ By whose authority ? That is what I want to 
know.” He looked round the table triumjdiantly, as if to say, “ Now 
you feeble Londoners can see what manner of men we are in my town, 
and how slight is the chance of any one getting the better of us.” 
“By "whose authority,” he again demanded, “was this change made?” 

The head w’aiter timidly suggested that it might have been by the 
authority of the manager. 

“Send the manager here, sir, instantly—instantly,” Mr. Cutts said 
in loud and appalling tones, and he struck both hands down upon the 
table. 

“Is it really worth while?” Father St. Maurice softly interposed, 
gently shrugging his shoulders. His feelings towards Mr. Cutts w^ere 
beginning to be very much like those which a thoroughbred Arab 
steed might be supposed to have towards a noisy, lumbering, big¬ 
footed dray horse, or a Damascus blade to a piece of rusty iron hoop 
Avith a cross handle put to it and thus converted into a weapon. 

“Another burden added to the cares of life,” murmured Lady 
Deveril plaintively; “ the difficulty of providing people with some¬ 
thing to eat. The game season is on certainly, and one doesn’t need 
to take refuge in calf’s head as a novelty; but who can blame an hotel 
manager for backing out of asparagus at £4 a bundle.” 

“Well, it is pretty certain,” Morse interposed good-humouredly, 
“that we shan’t get the asparagus now; and, perhaps, it is hardly 
worth while having a conference with the manager.” 

Mr. Cutts shrugged his shoulders more emphatically than St. 
Maurice had done; threw out his hands, and flung himself back in his 
chair wdth the manner of one who would say, “If you ]ioor people 
really like to be done, vhy, have it your own way; I don’t want to 
protect you against your will.” 

There was a good deal of general talk about the late elections, the 
grouping of parties, the tripartite formation of the new House, the 
tactics of this or that member of a Cabinet supposed to be on its last 
legs, or of an understanding arrived at between leaders of different 
factions; (.f a threatening note, addicssed ]y the Prime Minister to 


THE PROGRESSIVE CLUB. 


213 


the antagonistic State, which it was thought would precipitate war; 
of the chances for and against a Liberal Ministry,—all this discussed, 
with a good many veiled references to Morse, who, however, at this 
stage did not enter much into the political conversation, but devoted 
himself principally to the ladies of the party. 

Something was said about Masterson, and certain rumoured socialist 
anti-war demonstrations. 

“ I shouldn’t be surprised at anything Masterson might do—short 
of dynamite or the dagger. I think he would draw the line there,” 
said Lord Albert Folger. 

Don’t you admire him! ” exclaimed Lady Constance Arklow, 
looking round the company generally. “ I think he is perfectly 
splendid! ” 

“ He’s a plucky fellow, but he is a lunatic,” said Mr. Piercy. “ I 
suppose you’d call his lunacy enthusiasm ? ” 

“ Enthusiasm is the spur which the gods use,” put in Father St. 
Maurice’s liquid voice. 

‘‘Enthusiasm is the curse of the individual or of the nation,” 
growled Mr. Weatherby Cutts. “It leads to prison in the one case, and 
to taxes and trade depression in the other.” 

“Oh, I sympathize with the enthusiasts,” said the pretty woman’s- 
rights’ advocate. “ They are laughed at by their generation and deified 
by all succeeding ones. Isn’t it so, now ? It’s like genius, don’t you 
know. Ah,” she sighed, “ I’m an enthusiast rnyselfi I wish that I 
were a genius too.” And she beamed on the editor. 

“We should none of us mind being tarred with that brush,” cheer¬ 
fully replies! the man of letters. 

“Well, but don’t you think there is something glorious in the idea 
of a great nation rising up in battle?” Lady Deveril asked, reverting 
to the original topic. “ I mean, of course, in a rightful cause. I 
should not like England to go to war in a wrong cause; but then, 
the right, you know—when one sees the right—ol), I do think it is 
so delightful; it is like the Crusades all over again. I adore the 
Crusades.” 

“ When England joined in the Crusades,” Father St. Maurice said 
seriously, “ she had a national faith. She could pray for light, and 
she could believe. That true Christian faith she has long lost. AVhen 
she finds it again she will be able to know what is a rightful cause, and 
light will come to her to show her where and when and how to strike.” 

“ I haven’t any patience with the true Christian’s proprietary 
interest in faith,” cried Mrs. Gage, an odd gleam lighting up her St. 
Monica face. “ Why should we be immortal ? Why must we have 
souls ? Why ? Because w'e can think and feel ? Because our emo¬ 
tions are wonderful ? So is the flame of gas ; but the flame goes out, 
and there’s an end of it.” 

Mr. Piercy nodded his head distinctly, but he screwed his cynical 
lips more tightly together. He did not condescend to lend his scien¬ 
tific authority to the support of Mrs. Gage’s arguments. 


214 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


*'• I am sure I have tried to have a faith,” Lady Deveril said, with a 
melancholy look upwards and a sigh. “ I have been at ever so many 
meetings of the U’heosophical Societ)’’, and I am a member of the 
Society of Psychical Research. Pm bound to say that I found a great 
deal of * copy ’ there, but I didn’t find nuicli else. Pve tried so many 
things,” Lady Deveril said plaintively, ‘‘as dear Lady Betty can 
testify, Mr. Morse; for she too had something of my thirst for experi¬ 
ence, though she didn’t look at it altogether from the point of view of 
the higher life—the artistic higher life, you know. Pm not thinking 
of Mr. Laurence Oliphant—I only hope that politics may bring me 
more satisfaction than the rest—and be more profitable. Jt is the 
duty of a writer to study everything,” emphatically pursued Lady 
Deveril, after a little pause, during which she took breath and fixed 
the editor’s eye. “ I spent half an hour to-day talking to a coster¬ 
monger—getting at his point of view. He had such a donkey. Pd 
have bought it if I could have kept it on the leads. The ambition of 
my life has always been to drive a donkey cart out slumming—a 
point of sympathy, don’t you see. But unless you understand their 
language, it’s very hard to make them go.” 

“ Come back to the war; that’s the point. Are we going to have a 
war or are we not?” said Mr. Weatherby Cutts. 

“Oh, I suppose there can’t be much doubt that we are going to 
have a war,” some one promptly answered. 

“Very well, then. Now, 1 wan’t to come to the point at once. If 
we are to have the war, who is going to carry it on ? Is it to be left 
in the hands of the Tories? I for one say, no, no; emphatically no. 
If the thing must be done, 1 say, let us do it. Kick them out at 
once, and let our chaps come in; that’s business.” 

The dinner came to an end at last; the waiters left the room, and 
now the real conversation, the business of the evening, was to set in. 
Mr. Cutts, as chairman, endeavoured to give a tone of his own to the 
whole proceedings. He set about opening the business in a formal 
speech which promised to be of some length, and displayed the style 
admired in his town council. The honorary secretary, Mr. Crewcll, 
mildly interposed. Mr. Cutts stopped and bent down to listen. Mr. 
Crewell exjdained that it was not the habit of the club to make formal 
speeches. The proceedings were usually conversational, each member 
giving his or her opinion in turn, and remaining seated while speaking. 

“Oh, indeed! that’s your way here!” Mr. Cutts observed. “ AU 
riglit. It don’t seem to me a good plan; ” but he stopped his speech 
abruptly and submitted to the queer ways of London. 

“ i’erhaiis I may be allowecl to say, for the information of new 
members of the rlub, and our chairman among the rest,” the honorary 
secretary blandly observed, “that it is usual on such an occasion as 
this—I mean aftt-r a general election, or during an important political 
crisis—to ask if there is any member who has any reason to believe 
that he or any other member, also a member of Parliament, is likely 
soon to cease to belong to the club. Of course we do not expect indis- 


THE PROGRESSIVE CLUB. 


215 

creet (lisclos'irra; but where a disclosure may be properly made, I 
think I am warranted in saying that the club would be pleased to 
receive it at the earliest possible moment—in fact, that one of the 
objects of the club is the elucidation of ])olitical problems by means of 
such informal disclosures. Of course, if confidence is desired, confi¬ 
dence will be absolutely preserved.” 

There was a general cry of “ Hear hear,” and all eyes were turned 
on Morse. 

“ We expect our chief to give us some information,” said Lady 
Deveril softly, but yet in a tone which was distinctly heard all over 
the table, and she turned her soft and sentimental eyes upon the hero 
of the moment. 

There was a pause; a general silence; a straining of anxiety. 
iMorse looked suddenly up and saw that every gaze was fixed on him. 
“ Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, with a smile- 

“ Now for it,” Lord Albert murmured, and his eyes sparkled in 
anticipation of the happy moment when he should be invited to 
become Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs with his chief in the 
House of Lords ; when he should, in fact, be master of the situation. 

“ Of course,” Morse went on, “ I can’t affect to misunderstand the 
meaning of what our friend, Mr. Crewell, has just said. I am all the 
better able to understand it, because I had once before the same sort 
of appeal made to me in this club.” Cries of “Hear, hear,” and loud 
applause. “ Then I answered the appeal in one way ; now I have to 
answer it in another.” 

“In another!” The words ran from mouth to mouth. There was 
a hush of breathless anxiety and expectation. Lady Deveril’s face 
grew pale and full of consternation. Even Lady Constance Arklow, 
follower though she was of Masterson, wrinkled up her brows in a 
disturbed manner. The editor tried to look unconcerned. Father St. 
Maurice looked deeply interested. The man who made speeches on 
universal disarmament smiled benignly. Perhaps with that exception, 
in spite of all acknowledged principles, there was not a person present 
who had not in his or her heart hoped that Morse would seize the 
opportunity made for him. All had expected some sort of diplomatic 
avowal of a change of front on the part of the Padical leader—refer¬ 
ence to new elements set in motion by‘the elections; the altered 
aspect of the situation ; the true statesmanlike duty of yielding to the 
wish of a people constitutionally expressed, an allusion to Lord Pal¬ 
merston’s change of attitude, or Mr. Gladst-me’s, or somebody’s, as a 
precedent and justification for a like proceeding on the part of a states¬ 
man now. 

“At that time,” Morse continued, “I had to say that I was about 
to become a member of an Administration then being formed. Now I 
have to say that I have no such intention. I hope the club will not 
be sorry to liear that I continue to be one of its members. As things 
now stand, it is absolutely imix)ssible that I could take any part in 
the government of this country. I believe, and I say it with the 



2I6 


^^THE RIGHT honourable:' 


deeiest regi\t, that no Ministry could stand just now which did not 
yield to the demand for war; and I will not yield to that demand. 
Nothing on earth shall change my resolve; and therefore I am glad,” 
he said, with a smile, “ to be able to announce that 1 shall continue 
to be a member of the Progressive Club.” 

The advocate of peace jumped from his chair, ran round to Morse, 
and literally embraced him, and then burst into tears of sincere 
delight—the tears of the enthusiast. 

But a shadow fell upon the soul of Lord Albert Folger, and the face 
of Mr. Sinclair was dark. Mr. Cutts gasped several times, but could 
find nothing to say. His astonishment beggared words. 

“ He may be wrong in his decision,” St. Maurice said; but he is— 
a man.” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

‘*BUT MY CHILDREN?” 

The newspapers came out the morning after Morse's explanation at 
the Progressive Club without a word or hint of the news. To be 
sure. Lord Albert Folger, who was great on giving straight tips to 
his favourite journals generally, had gone direct to the Sunday even¬ 
ing meeting of the Universe Club, but then he had taken care not to 
let the story get out there. He still thought it well to cling to 
Morse’s fortunes; and he was not without a hope that Morse might 
even yet be led to reconsider his determination. To Lord Albert it 
seemed well-nigh impossible that a man so near the summit of an 
Englishman’s ambition should thus clip Elysium and lack his joy on 
a mere scruple about a war. The less said, therefore, for the present' 
about Morse’s resolve the better. Morse must not be committed too 
soon; and so Lord Albert kept his news to himself. The news had 
dashed him, but he was not yet in despair, or even quite despondent. 

“Queen sent for Morse yet, Folger?” Colonel Merriman asked, 
with an air of marvellously artificial ease and carelessness. Colonel 
Merriman was supposed to be a contributor to a morning paper, and 
was always on the look-out for straight tips. 

“ Not yet,” was Lord Albert’s answer, given in a mysterious whisper 
and with a diplomatic glance around, as if to see if any one was 
watching them. 

“But she will, of course?” 

“My dear Merriman, she hasn’t told mie anything about it. She 
hasn’t sent for me." 

“ I see, I see.” And Colonel Merriman went off, satisfied that Lord 
Albert knew all about it, and was only making a confounded mystery 
of what might as well be told first as last. So he went down to his 
newspaper office and imparted the news that it was all right about 
Morse. No other member of the Progressive Club went anywhere but 


^^BUT MY CHILDREN 


217 


to his home after the proceedings at the dinner had come to an end, 
and thus it happened that London learned nothing next morning 
about the determination of the Eadical leader not to take office, and 
not to tolerate a policy of war. 

As the day wore on the news began to get about. Some of the 
members of the Progressive Club telegraphed the story early in the 
morning to friends and constituents in the country, and so it happened 
that it got into the second editions of some provincial papers before it 
was announced in any London journal. The London evening papers, 
in fact, gave it cvirrency only on the faith of a telegram from some 
provincial correspondents, and guarded themselves against guarantee¬ 
ing its accuracy on the ground that there was not time to make 
inquiry in what was called “ the proper quarter.” 

It is needless to say that the news did not quickly reach Koor^li’s 
ears. But it would not have been news to her in any case. From 
what peoide told her, and from what she could read in the newspapers, 
it was evident that the voice of the majority was for war, and she well 
knew that to such a demand Morse would not yield. She knew her 
hero, she thought; and she was proud of him; proud, in advance, of 
his resolve. She was proud of having been sometimes admitted to his 
confidence; proud of having been allowed, though even only once or 
twice and by glimpses, to look into his heart; proud to have been in 
sympathy, to be still in sympatliy with him. “He will forget me 
in all this,” she sometimes thought. “So much the better,” she told 
herself. 

Crichton came back to London late that evening. He was in a 
state of irritation and repressed excitement. He had lizard a rumour 
that Morse had announced his intentions at the dinner of the Pro¬ 
gressive Club. He had heard the disturbing rumour in the hunting- 
field, and he had come up to town after a long, unsatisfactory day on 
purjwse to see what truth there was in it. 

Koorali had finished her lonely dinner, and was lingering over the 
dining-room fire reading a morning paper in which there was a leading 
article about Morse. She was thinking, with an ache at her heart, of 
Morse and of Lady Betty. 

Crichton came in like a gust of harsh wind from outside. He met 
Koorkli’s regrets about the poor preparation for any tolerable dinner 
with a gesture of impatience. 

“Oh, never mind. I ought to have telegraphed. Anything will 
do. It was a beastly day’s hunting; no scent. I hear Morse is in 
town. Have you seen him to-day ?” 

“No,” replied Koorali. 

Crichton looked at her keenly, but asked no further questions. He 
read his letters, and began to eat his hastily prepared dinner. “ Well,” 
he said, “ there seems to be nothing but bad news and duns.” 

“What bad news?” asked KooiAli vacantly. She was always 
hearing bad news. 

“Oh, Clumper wants money, and Bonhote writes that he won’t 

15 


2 I 8 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


come to dinner. What the deuce is this flavoured with? Ask the 
cook if she has notliing better for me to eat than stuff like this?” 

'J'lie servant went out. Koor5,li inquired if Crichton had seen 
Zen. 

“ Zen is making a fool of herself over her village entertainments 
and poor men's club. Every one can see that Arden, not philan¬ 
thropy, is at the bottom of it all. What an idiot she is to think that 
Arden could be taken hj a woman like her! Eustace and she have 
fallen out, and he has gone over to Paris by himself.” 

Koorhli would have liked to know more, but Crichton was absorbe<l 
in the cook’s new concoction, and was in a gruff, uncommunicative 
mood. When he had finished he got up, not lingering as was his 
wont over the wine. 

“ Pm goit)g to the club,” he said, “just to hear the news. Pou’t go 
to bed till I come back. I shan’t be long. And I want to talk to you. 
It’s time we knew what we were about.” 

Koorali understood his ways, and knew quite well that he had heard 
something or suspected something which he did not choose to tell her 
as yet. It was something disagreeable to him, that was plain, and at 
the same time something in which he supposed her to be directly or 
indirectly concerned; something for which she was to receive blame. 
About that she was quite clear. It occurred to her now and then, in 
a dismally humorous way, that Crichton would be disappointed some¬ 
times if anything in which she was concerned w’ent quite well, and 
left him no excuse for finding fault with her. So much of self-i'acrifice 
is there left, even in the very selfish, that many a man would posi¬ 
tively rather things went wrong and gave him a chance of scolding 
his wife, than that they went right and afforded him no such oppor¬ 
tunity. This is a fact whereon a certain school of thinkers, who 
believe that man is concerned only for his practical personal interests, 
would do well to ponder deeply. For, after all, it surely cannot be 
but that there are men who would rather forfeit some personal advan¬ 
tage than imperil a great cause, seeing that there are undoubtedly 
men who would now and then willingly sacrifice a personal comfort 
or acquisition for the sake of being able to grumble at their wives, and 
say, “ I told you so; you ought to have done this; you ought not to 
have done that; it was all your fault; you never wall be persuaded to 
follow my advice and my instructions.” 

Koorali sat thinking of such things in a half-satirical, half-melan- 
chedy mood. It is a trial for a wile to be mis])rized by the one who 
should most appreciate her; but how much harder a ti ial, a h-mptation, 
lo be misprized by that one and only too highly prized by some 
other? Koorali looked into the embers of the fire as she .^at and 
thought; and there she seemed to see her early Australian life pass 
like a moving picture before her. She saw her youth, her hopes; she 
saw the grey dawn a'.id Morse; and the fire collapsed with a little 
crash, and Kooiali gave an audible sob. She roused herself up, 
ashamed of her moment of weakness, and she went to the window 


^^BUT MY CHILDRENf 


219 


and tried to look out upon the night. Suddenly the postman’s ring 
sounded. The letter which was handed to Koorkli bore the South 
Britain stamp. It was in Mr. Middlemist's handwriting, and it had a 
deep mourning border. 

Who was dead? Koor^li wondered at first, in a dazed apathetic 
way. She did not feel any thrill of terror. Everything seemed to 
Tnatter little now. After a few moments, she suddenly came to know 
by a sort of instinct, even before she had read the flimsy pages, • 
that it was her stepmother who had died. Mr. Middlemist wrote 
forlornly. For the third time he was alone. The better and tenderer 
nature of the man shone out under the influence of grief. Koorali 
was deeply touched. There was something pathetic in the appeal to 
her which the letter conveyed; in the hinted remorse for past neglect. 
Ilers was a sympathy which took fire readily. Mr. Middlemist sug¬ 
gested that he might find consolation for his declining years in the 
companionship of his only daughter and his grandsons. He wished 
it were possible for them to make his home theirs. He wrote in the ♦ 
full belief that Crichton, having lost his appointment, would shortly 
return to South Britain. He had heard nothing of Crichton’s ambitious 
schemes. 

Koorali sat for a long time over the fire in the drawing-room, with 
the letter in her hand. A wild paljutating hope rose within her like 
that which might be felt by some storm-tossed seaman who fancies 
that he sees land upon the horizon. Oh, if Crichton would but allow 
her to go back again to her father, to take her boys to South Britain, 
and bring them up there to work for themselves, to be brave, manly, 
self-reliant! 

Koorali told herself that she no longer craved for joy in life. She 
had outgrown her time; she had outworn her illusions. There was 
nothing left for her but duty. Her spirits and nerves were broken, 
and she only asked for rest. She honestly wished to escape from all 
chance of meeting Morse, and from that terribly false position which 
made her home-life so difficult. She had put aside her dream of love 
as one bound to the working-day world must turn perforce from 
visions of an impossible heaven on earth. She feared for her strength 
to bear against the hourly fret of her chains, the constant oppression 
of that misfortune which had befallen her. She saw herself, as years 
went on, hardened, hopeless, querulous, perhaps ungracious to her 
children, deteriorated in moral fibre. For was it not inevitable that 
her standard should become lowered? Must she not in lime sink to 
Crichton’s level, lower herself for very peace sake, and lose touch of 
high and noble purpose ? Could there be any worse wrong ? Oh, 
where was the right, and where the wrong? 

Koorali pressed her hand over her eyes. Her brain was deadened. 

Her obligation seemed narrowed down to a measure of maternal duty, 
and beyond that there was no horizon. This crave for liberty, to live 
alone with her children, was possessing her. It consumed her like a 
])assion. She felt that she could net endure these daily hypocrisies— 


220 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


could not live in conventional intercourse with Morse and Lady Betty, 
conscious all the time of that degrading half-understanding between 
herself and her husband. 

She was still sitting with her forehead bent down upon her hands, 
when Crichton returned. He came in boisterously, and she gave a 
great start and rose in a frightened way from her chair as he closed 
the door behind him and approached her. She had let her thoughts 
go wandering away to Muttabarra, to the Pilot Station, to that lone 
stretch of Australian coast which she saw as distinctly as though she 
were looking at a picture. Crichton’s entrance was like the renewed 
pressure of an incubus that had been thrown off for a little while. 
After breathing free air, she seemed again stifled. 

“ Your friend Morse has ruined the finest chances a man ever had 
in his hands,” Kenway exclaimed fiercely, without any preliminary 
explanation. “He has flung away,” he added with a furious oath, 
“ the fortunes of a whole pai ty. He will never recover this; he’s 
• gone; he’s ruined—and, confound him, he has ruined me too! ” 

Koorali drew a deep breath; but she did not at once realize what 
he meant; she was not seriously discomposed. Crichton Kenway, in 
a fit of anger, was to her a tolerably familiar spectacle; and his fits of 
anger might as well be about trifles as about serious things. The ruin 
of a ra.rty or the overdoing of a steak—what did it matter ? 

“ What has happened?” she asked. 

“ Don’t play the innocent. Hasn’t he told you ? ” 

“ As I said before, I have not seen Mr. Morse to-day—or for many 
days.” 

“But didn’t he j)repare you for this? Doesn’t he write to you? 
Oh, I know! Come, out with it. Did he not tell you ; didn’t he ask 
your philosophical and virtuous advice ? Are you not his Egeria and 
I don’t know what all ? Do you mean to tell me that you really know 
nothing of all this ? By God, I don’t believe you! ” 

Koorali looked at him with more serious questioning. He had come 
close to her, and she shrank from him, not because of fear so much as 
because of repugnance. There was a repressed fury in Crichton’s eyes 
and tone which did almost frighten her, in spite of the contempt for 
his tragic moods which experience had taught her. 

“ You see, Crichton, you have not given me a chance of knowing 
whether Mr. Morse did consult me or didn’t,” she said, in that cold 
clear voice which had the double effect of outwardly calming and 
inwardly incensing her husband. “ I have no idea of what you are 
speaking. Will you tell me first? You can be angry with me after— 
or disbelieve me.” 

Crichton glared at her savagely. But he gulped down his wrath 
somehow, and sat himself to explain in short, curt sentences. 

“ Morse has refused to form a Ministry. He gave it out last night 
at the Progressive Club. All London is talking of it. I'here’s not a 
doubt that we shall have war—more aggressions are telegraphed in the 
papers this evening. A Cabinet council is called. Not an English- 


^^BUT MY CHILDREN? 


221 


man with the spirit of a mouse but will stand up for war, and Morse 
sticks to his cowardly, pig-headed obstinacy.” 

“Oh, that is all,” Koorali said quietly; but she reared her little 
frame with a gesture that implied she was on the defensive. “Yes, 
Crichton, I knew he would do that; be told me. But he also told you 
and many other people, didn’t he ? I heard him say it the very first 
day we ever dined at Lady Betty’s. He spoke then so strongly 
against the idea of a war that, of course, I knew he would have 
nothing to do with it. He has been denouncing it, working hard 
against it ever since ; and he always told me he did not think it would 
be possible for any man to form a Government now who set himself 
against the war.” 

“Stuff! Things hadn’t gone so far then. That was before the 
elections; before he had the chance of being Prime Minister. Public 
men always say that sort of thing when they are not in power. No 
one expects them to keep to it when they get the chance of office.” 

“ Then did you really believe Mr. Morse was a man who cared about 
office, or would sacrifice his own convictions and principles to it ? For 
a man of the world, Crichton, I don’t think you read men’s character 
very well. I have not spoken much to Mr. Morse lately about this, 
but of course I knew that he would not take office, if taking office were 
to mean carrying on this war.” 

“ A man owes something to his party,” Kenway said sulkily. 

“A man owes something to his principles and to himself; and 
Mr. Morse is a man to pay his debts of honour of that kind,” answered 
Koorali steadily. “Crichton, I am glad ; yes—I am glad—and I will 
say it; but I am not surprised.” 

“ Perhaps it might throw a little damp on the fire of your joy,” 
Kenway said angrily, “ if you knew that your heroic friend’s virtuous 
resolve is the ruin of your husband.” And Crichton sat down with 
a look of despair. Indeed, there was unmistakable sincerity in that 
look. Koorali was touched and alarmed by it. 

“ Crichton, do tell me,” she said, coming up to him and laying 
a kindly hand upon his shoulder. “ Has any Iresh thing happened; 
and why is this your ruin ? Our affairs are in a better state now than 
they were three months ago, when I begged you to accept the appoint¬ 
ment Lord Coulmont offered.” 

KoorMi had almost become accustomed to hearing of their ruin, 
finding that nothing in particular came of it but that matters went on 
very much the same as before. She did not know the real depth of 
Crichton’s embarrassments, and believed that, thanks to old Mrs. 
Nevile-Beauchamp’s legacy, this crisis, like others, had been tided 
over. She did not realize either how rooted was Crichton’s determina¬ 
tion to carve out a career for himself in England. 

“ Where am I to get an appointment now ? Whom have I to look 
to?” cried Crichton, in a sort of angry wail. “I pinned my faith on 
him altogether; 1 put all my eggs in one basket; I have made enemies 
everywhere by sticking to him; I have publicly committed mvself to 


“jy/ii RIGHT HONO HR ABLET 


his policy; and now he throws me over! I have gone into debt; I 
have been raising money here, there, and everywhere, on ilie certainty 
of his getting me a permanent appointment; and now where am 1 ? 
hie has thrown me over; ruined me; ruined me! ” Kenway jumped 
up again, and began pacing wildly up and down the room. 

“But Crichton, Crichton,” said Koorali, her instinct of sympathy 
turned back again, “you surely could not expect Mr. Morse to carry 
on a war 'which he believes to be wicked merely to enable him to get 
appointments for his friends ? I am very, very sorry; but I am sure 
I would rather starve than think of any man making such a sacrifice 
of principle.” 

“ Starve! Oh, you won’t starve ; he won’t let you starve ; you will 
be right enough,” Kenway said brutally. His words hurt KooiMi as 
the stroke of a whip might have done. She flushed for an instant, and 
then she turned very white ; but she was determined to keep her self- 
control, and not to give her infuriated husband any excuse for insulting 
her. She did not reply for a few moments. When she answered, it 
annoyed him that she completely ignored his remark. 

“You have many friends, Crichton; and you have talents. Y'ou 
cannot want the means and opportunities of making a living in a place 
like London; and there is always the alternative of going back to 
South Britain.” 

“That might suit you. It would only be going back to what you 
sprang from. But I’ve had rather too strong a dose of South Britain. 
I should be a happier man if I had never set foot in South Britain.” 
His look, fixed on her, pointed the allusion. 

A passionate entreaty rose to her lips—“ Let me go back, then, to 
what I sprang from, and let us be free of each other ; ” but she did not 
utter it. She was determined to say nothing unguarded or impetuous. 
The proposal which was shaping itself in her mind must bo made 
calmly and reasonably. Her only chance of having it accepted would 
lie, she knew, in its appeal to Crichton’s self-interest. He miglit think 
it better for himself to be rid of her and her children. No; he would 
never let Lance go. He might give her Miles. Would ho give her 
Miles ? Could she leave Lance ? 'I’he questions and answers balanced 
each other in her miml, repeating themselves over and over again, so 
that she hardly heard Crichton as he went on— 

“Make a living for myself! Yes ; I dare say. I can write for the 
newspapers. I can do penny-a-lining perhaps. That isn’t quite the 
sort of thing I wanted. I wanted to be a gentleman, and to be able 
to live like one. Fancy how my confounded family will laugh when 
they hear of all this ! I don’t wonder, I arn sure. I have been 
making a confounded fool of myself, trusting to that man—yes ; and 
to you. Do you hear ? ” 

Koorali started, recalled from that bewildering process of weighing 
possibilities. “Do you really believe,” she said coldly, “that Mr. 
Morse would have taken office if I had advised him; if I had been 
mean and false enough to advise him? Do you think he is a man to 


^^BUT MY CHILDREN 


223 

be^ put into leading-strings in that way by any woman ? Do you 
think his wife did not urge him enough to put himself on the side of 
the Court and of her class ?” 

“A man doesn’t care about his wife’s advice,” Ken way said coarsely. 
“ It’s quite a different thing about the advice of another man’s wife.” 
lie laughed cynically. 

He wouldn’t have taken my advice to that effect,” she said; “ and 
I would not have siven him such advice.” 

There was a little silerice. She half expected that Crichton would 
refer back to their last conversation on the subject, in Zen’s house— 
the conversation which was burnt for ever into her memory. He had 
forgotten it apparently, and had taken her indignant protests as mean¬ 
ing nothing. He had gone on believing that he could still make use 
of her as a bait, even aher that appeal to him which it had cost her 
so much to make. Her breast heaved with the sense of utter loneliness. 
But she held herself in, and after a moment caught at this want of 
comprehension of her as a plea for superficial dealing. She went on 
in a frozen way— 

“ You rather overrate Mr. Morse’s opinion of my intellect and my 
capacity for advising statesmen, Crichton.” 

“ I wasn’t saying anything about your intellect, Koor^li. Perhaps, 
if it comes to that, I have no mighty high opinion of it myself. It 
isn’t by their intellect that women govern men. Look at Lady Maud 
and Lord Paddington. She hasn’t very much intellect; she has hardly 
a trace of good looks left; she is twenty years older than you; and 
she can turn him round her finger! By Jove, I wish I knew her. 
She would be more use to me than you are.” 

“I wish you did know her, Crichton ; I can be of no use to you in 
the way of obtaining appointments. It might have spared you dis¬ 
appointment if you had believed me in earnest when I said this before. 
I think it is cruel and shameful of you to speak in that way.” Her 
determination not to see that she was insulted began to break down. 

You know what I mean, perfectly well,” he said. “.Y'ou know 
I don’t mean anything wrong. You know I would cut your throat if 
I thought you were capable of anything wrong. But I don’t; luckily 
for you. That isn’t your line. By Jove, you haven’t feeling enough 
for it, I verily believe. But there is influence which a wife, who is 
anything of a decent ^pal’ to her husband, may fairly use for his 
advantage, without giving occasion for the slightest whisper or breath 
of scandal. Well, you didn’t use it anyhow. After all, I don’t suppose 
you really had any influence over Morse. I suppose he meant notljing 
all the time.” Crichton laughed jeeringly. “ After all, that is more 
likely than that the Farnesia business was a plant to get me out of 
the way. Y’’ou were quite right, I did give you credit for too much 
cleverness.” 

“ Mr. Morse is a gentleman, and a man of honour,” Koorali said in 
her quietest tone. She was recovering her self-possession. She 
despised the man too much to feel the sting of his senseless insults. 


2 24 ^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 

She was only anxious now to bring this odious scctie to a close as soon 
as possible. 

“ I don’t call it the part of a gentleman and a man of honour to 
ruin the prospects of the party and the friends who trusted to him for 
a mere absurd scruple. No matter; others may be ruined too. Let 
him see whether two can’t play at that game of ruining. I may have 
my chance of revenge on your dear and scrupulous friend, Koorali; 
and .see if I don’t make good use of it, that's all. Your highly esteemed 
Morse may find out to his cost some day that there are men whom he 
has injured and who can repay.” 

Koorali did not at the moment pay much attention to these words 
of her husband’s. It did not seem possible to her that he could have 
any real purpose or means of injuring Morse. It was a common thing 
with him to console himself under imaginary wrong by hinting at dark 
and mysterious schemes of vengeance, and Koorali had always seen 
that the threatened men and women lived long. Probably Kenway 
saw the meaning of her expression. 

“You think I can do nothing,” he said, with a fierce laugh; “just 
you wait and see. I can hit your friend Morse where he will feel it. 
You shall see before long. Mind—it is I who am in earnest now. 
You wouldn’t help me, and you shall see what I can do. Tell Morse 
so if you like, when you confab with him next.” 

“May I go now?” Koorali asked. “Do you want me any more?” 

“You may go,” he answered fiercely, “where you please. The 
further the better.” Then he turned to leave the room. He stopped 
at the door, and said, “ I am going out again, and I am off by an early 
train to-morrow. If anything turns up that I ought to know, or any 
one wants to see me that I ought to see, you can telegraph to me at 
the Grey ]\Ianor.” 

It was curious that, with all his unmeaning wrath against her and 
his brutal insults, Crichton Kenway assumed and knew perfectly well 
that she would look after his interests faithfully and obey all his 
reasonable commands. He knew that he could trust his life in her hands, 
even though he made her feel hour after hour the degradation of her 
bondage to him. He had no more doubt of her absolute purity than 
he had of her bodily existence. But be had a keen idea that she might, 
if she had the craft of other women, have managed to secure something 
/or him without any sacrifice of, at all events, her physical purity. 
Probably he spoke truly enough; probably he would have killed her 
if he believed or even suspected that she had done wrung; but, all the 
same, he did not see why she might not- have managed to do something 
for her husband without doing wrong to herself. In any case he was 
now wild and furious with Morse, and he knew no better way of 
expending his fury than to pour it out on her. 

As he was going away Kcorali’s voice stopped him. 

“ Crichton.” 

He turned again, and faced her. She had come forward to the 
centre of the room, and stood very pale and resolute, with hands 


''‘^BUT MY CHILDREN 


22^ 

clr4Spod nen'ously before her, and bright dilated eyes which met hi^ 
with a port of steely hardness. 

^ “ \yell! ” he asked impatiently. “ What are you looking at me like 
t:mt tor? Have you anything else to say? Make haste, it is getting 
late.” 

“ I shall not keep you many minutes,” said KoorMi, with intense 
<|uietness. “I have something to say to you, Crichton, which I want 
you to take seriously. I mean it with my whole heart. It is a plan 
—a proj^osal. I think it might relieve you from difficulty.” 

“ Well! ” he repeated. “ You are not usually fertile in suggestions 
about getting me out of my difficulties. Let me hear this one.” 

You said just now that I might go away—where I pleased—the 
Lirther the better. Did you really mean that, Crichton?” 

“Oh, confound it all,” said he roughly, “don’t begin talking in the 
air. I’m married to you, I suppose, and I must support you; and 
there’s an end of it.” 

“There may be an end of it,” she said, still with that extreme 
quietude; “ and you may be relieved from the burden of supporting 
me, if only you will agree to what I ask. Will you let me go away, 
Crichton, and live apart from you? Why should we keep up this 
mockery of a union? It seems to me a most frightful and unnatural 
thing that two people should be bound together for life who feel as 
you and I feel. I think you must almost hate me, Crichton, or you 
could not speak to me and think of me as you do; and I have neither 
love nor respect Jeft now for you. It seems a hard thing to say ; but 
it is the truth. Will you let me go away? I don’t want you to give 

me any money. I -want nothing but-” and she stopped suddenly, 

for she dared not add, ^‘my children,” lest before he had time to con¬ 
sider the advantages of being rid of her, he might silence her pleading 
by an angry refusal. 

“ Be good enough to talk common sense,” he exclaimed. “ What 
do you propose to do after 5’’ou have gone?—work or starve?” 

“I will go back to South Britain,” she answered. 

“ And when you have got back—I suppose you have considered 
that your passage will have to be paid?—do you intend to ask your 
stepmother’s permission to make a home wuth her? You were glad 
enough to be out of your father’s house, and he was glad enough to get 
you off his hands. I shouldn’t think he’d be so delighted to take you 
on again.” 

“ My stepmother is dead,” said Koorali. “Just before you came in, 
Crichton, I had been thinking of this—longing that I might go away. 
I have got a letter from my father”—she made a little gesture towards 
the written sheets which lay upon the hearth-rug near where she had 
been sitting—“he tells me of his sorrow and his loneliness, and he 
wishes that I might be "with him again—I and my children.” 

Your children!” cried Crichton savagely. “Are they not my 
children too ? And do you think I’m going to let my boys—let Lance 
—be brought up after the pattern of Mr. Middlemist?” 


226 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


Kuo all nervously unclasped her hands, and then liccd the fingers 
Hgain more tightly. Her large dark eyes, full of anxiety and earnest¬ 
ness, never left his face; her heart was throbbing in great hammer- 
•beats. Id was as though her life—more than life to her—was at stake. 

“Crichton,” she said, “let us speak of this matter in a gentle spirit. 
There’s no use in saying taunting things. The children are yours as 
well as mine. That is the most pitiful and terrible fact in such a 
marriage as ours. You have a part right to them-” 

He interrupted her. “ Let me remind you,” he said, “ that Lance 
is just eiglit years old. Miles will be seven in a month or two. The 
law gives me full right.” 

“Is there a mother in England who would acknowledge it?” cried 
Koorali passionately. “What is your right compared with mine? 
I bore them—I love them. They are all the world to me, and they 
love me—my poor little boys! ” Koonili’s voice broke. After a 
moment she went on more steadily. “ 1 don’t want to be unfair, 
Crichton, or to dispute that you have a right; but 3 mu don't care 
about the children as I do. They are only pla^nhings to you—hardly 
that, for you arc often impatient even with Lance, though I know you 
are fond of him.” 

She waited as if for him to speak, but he kept a sullen silence. 

“Haven’t you anything to say to me about our living apart, 
Crichton? ” she asked tremulously. “ Surely that would please jmu 
better than the miserable life we lead now! Indeed, I do not think I 
could live it for much longer; it would kill me.” 

She waited once more. “ Go on,” he said again, “ I want to hear 
all that you have got to say.” 

“Think of it, Crichton,” she went on, her voice gaining intensity, 
“ think of what it has come to after all these years—that I long—that 
I pray to be released from you. Doesn’t that speak for itself? It 
doesn’t matter whose fault it is, or why it is. That’s enough. We 
weren’t suited to each other, and now we are hopelessly divided in 
heart and soul. I’m not excusing myself, Crichton, or putting all the 
blame on you. I think a different sort of woman might have been 
happier with jmu; but there’s the fact, and it’s best that we should 
part. Don’t let us quarrel, Crichton. Let me go in peace.” 

“ Look here,” exclaimed Crichton furiously. “ There’s no use talking 
in this wa}'. I’ll not consent to any scandal in my family; we are 
not used to it. If you go, it’s on your own responsibility; and you 
don’t come back again. Mind one thing,” he added, coming closer to 
her, “ if you do go, you don’t take the children. I hold to that. You 
don’t take the children.” 

“ Can you be so cruel, so pitiless ? ” 

“Don’t you know me even yet? You shall see.” 

“Do yon think you are the man to bring up children well; to teach 
my boys how to be men of honour—and gentlemen,” exclaimed Koorali 
desperately. 

“ What do you know about gentlemen ? There weren’t any gentle- 



THE WINTER SESSION. 227 

men in your ianiily, were there? I never heard it insinuated that old 
Middleinist was a gentleman.” 

“ Will you let me take my boys, Crichton, my sweet little innocent 
boys, who love me? You don’t care about them; you don’t care 
about children. Miles is so delicate, and Lance is very young still, 
and you want to get your affairs straight and to live in London. You 
would be glad—surely you would be glad not to have the trouble of 
them—and of me. Oh, Crichton, if I might keep them, say—for even 
three years, and then I would be reasonable. I would not ask for 
more than was just. They would go to school, and we might agree to 
share them. They might come to me at one time, and go to you at 
another; or you might let me have Miles altogether—oh,'Crichton ! ” 
She broke down now. The tears were gushing from her eyes. 
Kenvvay was glad. He believed that he had conquered. 

“You’ve ha I my answer. It’s no! Nothing will alter me. I’ll 
leave you now to think things over,” he said. “Y'ou know the con¬ 
ditions exactly. Go if you like, and when you like; but when you 
close the door of my house behind you, you liave no more to do with 
my children—you shall never see them again.” 

lie went out of the room, and shut the door behind him with a clang. 
Perhaps he was making the sound a sort of suggestion to her of the 
crash that would come upon her life and her affections when the door 
of his house should close behind her. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE WINTER SESSION. 

Parliament was called together for a winter session. There were 
troubles in the air; the fierce breath of a coming storm was felt. The 
Ministry had perforce to remain in office, as Morse would not come in, 
and just then no one else could. But they could not venture to get on 
without calling Parliament together and obtaining its authority. The 
great question was that of war or peace. At first, the only loud outcry 
was for war. Numbers of Englishmen everywhere were sick of being 
told that England could not fight any more, except with unarmed 
savages; and they would have welcomed a war with any great power, 
for any purpose, or for no purpose. The Ministry in possession feU 
that nothing would strengthen their position so much as a popular 
war, and at first it seemed as if this war would be altogether popular; 
but, alter a while, an anti-war i)arty began to make its existence 
known, and it grew more and more powerful every day. Perhaps the 
Ministry began to wish now that they had not called Parliament 
together that winter, but had acted boldly for themselves; had gone 
into the war at once and asked for the consent of Parliament alter- 
wards. In no case had they any doubt of a great parliamentary 
majority for a war policy; but they feared the stirring-up of angry 


223 


“r//^ RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


feeling, and tne possibility of inconvenient popular demonstrations on 
either side in the large towns, and perhaps consequent disturbance. 
However, the thing was done now and could not be undone. Parlia¬ 
ment was called together and everybody came back to town, and a 
winter season set in "with the winter session. Wives and daughters in 
general liked it. 

It was a tumultuous time. Public passion was fierce on both sides. 
The advocates of war were clamorous, and denounced all who opposed 
them as traitors, enemies to their country, and craven slaves of the 
foreigner. On the other hand, the opponents of the war had on their 
side the vast majority of the working-men almost everywhere. The 
prospect of work and wages for the winter was bad, and the artisan 
population were wild at the thought of the country’s money being 
squandered at such a time in what they believed to be an idle and 
wicked war. It got reported, nobody knew why, that the Court 
favoured the war, and were pressing Ministers on to throw down the 
gauntlet at once, and this further stimulated passion on both sides. 
Every evening great crowds gathered around the House of Commons 
cheering this or that member, according as he favoured their notions, 
and groaning at others. A large number of the street-lounging class 
were in favour of the war; so were nearly all the smaller shopkeepers , 
and in all sections of London life there is a good deal of sympathy 
with what its enemies call the “Jingo” feeling. Therefore the crowd 
round the Houses of Parliament was usually pretty well divided in 
strength, and the conspicuous member who got cheered by one set was 
sure to get groaned at by another. It was found necessary sometimes 
to close all the great gates, and Palace Yard was literall}’’ garrisoned 
by police. Every evening it was expected that the Ministry would 
announce the withdrawal of our ambassador and the declaration of 
war. The tension on both sides was unexampled in its severity. 
London seemed to hold its breath. 

Morse was always greeted with a peculiarly impassioned demon¬ 
stration from both sides. If a spectator standing on the far edge of a 
crowd, the eastern verge of it, \vere to hear a tremendous burst of 
vheering again and again renewed, and suddenly broken in upon and 
divided by a very thunderstorm of groans, hisses, and ferocious yells 
of hate, he might take it for granted that Sandham Morse was making 
his way into the House. Morse had been addressing meeting after 
meeting in London and in the provinces to condemn and denounce 
the war policy. He had flung himself into the anti-war movement 
with characteristic energy, and nothing but the popular force which 
he brought together, organized, and concentrated, prevented the 
Ministry from yielding to the clamour of the other side and declaring 
war at once. Morse was accepted by every one as the head and front 
of the anti-war party, which the working populations of all the great 
towns regarded as their own party. 

Masterson was very active with his democrats; but Morse kept aloof 
from any close association with that part of the agitation. We ha-ve 


THE WINTER SESSION. 


229 

already shown that he did not much believe in cosmopolitan associa¬ 
tions. He did not care much about the “ solidarity of nations ” and 
other such phrases; he did not care about fine phrases in general. He 
did not see how, as things now stand, there could be any real unity of 
feeling and aim between continental democracy and the democracy of 
this country. But he had an especial reason for holding himself apart 
from Masterson’s people. He had a strong suspicion concerning certain 
of the foreign confederates. Those of them who belonged to the 
country wuth which England was in all probability actually going to 
war seemed to him especially undesirable associates. He did not like 
the men personally; he did not trust them; he warned Masterson 
against them repeatedly and emphatically. Even if they were perfectly 
honest, he did not think their presence becoming in an English meet¬ 
ing. “ We donT understand fellows acting against their own country ; 
our people can’t make it out,” he told Masterson. Masterson extolled 
the noble love of humanity which set men above paltry considerations 
of nationality, and made them the brothers of all other men the world 
over, and bluntly told Morse that he was spoiled and made narrow and 
distrustful by the mean life of the House of Commons. Then Morse 
told Masterson, and wrote it to him several times, in order, if possible, 
to impress him the more, that he did not trust the men themselves; 
that he believed they were nothing more or less than spies for some 
sinister purpose. 

A great meeting was to take place in Hyde Park, from which a 
monster procession was to march to Palace Yard, and Morse at first 
was consenting to be present at the meeting; but he found that these 
very men were to be prominent in it, and Masterson would not give 
them up; and Morse therefore wrote to say he would not go, and told 
Masterson his reasons. Then Masterson grew cold towards Morse, and 
talked sadly and with many shakings of the head about the corrupting 
influence of Parliament and the West End upon even the finest 
characters ; and it was plain that he regarded Morse as a. good man 
gone wrong.” 

“Her Majesty the Queen has been pleased to confer on Mr. Crichton 
Kenway, late Agent-General for South Britain, the appointment of 
Governor of the Farnesia Islands.” 

So ran the paragraph in one of the morning papers, by which the 
defeat of Crichton Ken way’s dearest hopes was announced to the world 
in general. A paragraph in a social weekly enlarged somewhat on the 
information, gave particulars of Kenway’s career, praised his abilities 
and qualification for a colonial governorship, touched enthusiastically 
upon the charms of his wife, and deplored the removal of so bright a 
star from the firmament of London society. Another ])aragraph, how¬ 
ever, in a paper the pens of whose writers were tipped with gall, 
questioned the superior claim of Mr. Crichton Kenway to be provided 
for at the country’s expense, and offered dark suggestions as to tlie 
motive for this appointment on the part of an almost moribund Govern- 


230 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


mcnt, supposed to Lave now no privileges beyond the creation of a 
batch of peers. The writer intimated tliat the appointment was duo 
to the private intervention of a certain eminent Radical statesman, and 
liinted that, though the statesman referred to was doubtless actuated 
by the most commendable unselfishness, he would feel the loss of an 
Egeiia whose republican sentiments harmonized so entirely with his 
own political views. 

Lady Betty read this paragraph in the little interval of quiet between 
the departure of her afternoon visitors and dressing time. Bor the 
moment it did not strike her that her husband was the statesman in 
question. When it did dawn upon her, she gave a little cry, half 
amused, half vexed, and glanced at Morse, who was standing with his 
back against the chimney-piece, and with the troubled expression 
which had become now so habitual on his face. He looked down at 
her in surprise. 

“What is it, Betty? Are the Jingoes still raging furiously against 
me? What is the last accusation? That I am in league with the 
dynamiters? or that I am plotting the surrender of our Indian empire ? 
I know that it all hurts you, child; but you are silly to mind it.” 

Lady Betty’s lip trembled, and she exclaimed with a sort of childlike 
burst of feeling— 

“Ilowcan I help minding it, Sandham? How can I help being 
made unhappy by these horrible reports ? For you won’t take them— 
or me—seriously. You only laugh in that hard cynical way; and you 
won’t authorize me to contradict them, even to my own father—or the 
Pi incess! ” 

A gleam shot from Morse’s eyes, and his face hardened as it had a 
way of doing when he was moved and yet determined not to break his 
self-restraint. Ho answered in a level tone— 

“ At any rate, exonerate yourself from complicity, Betty. Assure 
your father—and the Princess, or as many princesses as you please— 
that you are quite in the dark, and that I have refused to authorize 
even my own wife to contradict these reports.” 

Lady Betty looked at him doubtfully, and then straightened herself 
with a little air of dignity. 

“All, now you are angry with me, Sandham; and, indeed, you are 
not just. Isn’t it natural that I should wish to take my husband’s 
part when all the world is abusing him ? Isn’t it natural that I should 
want the Royal Family, who have always been so nice to me, to think 
as well of you as they can, and as little seriously as possible of the 
dreadful republican speeches you make, and of your opposition to their 
wishes and ideas about what is best for England ? ISurely Pm not to 
be blamed for trying to smooth things over with my father? He is 
such a stnmg Tory and Royalist, don’t you know, and he is bitter 
against you, Sandham, and ready to believe anything? You don’t 
understand my position,” Lady Betty went on, more plaintively. 
“You don’t sec how hard it is for me. You don’t know how I feel 
going out this evening without you to meet the Prince and Princess. 


THE WINTER SESSION, 


231 

And then to know that it because you- have made yourself so 
unpopular, and that people don’t like to have you at their dinner¬ 
parties because your being there might cause embarrassment or even 
ill feeling. I don’t think you try to realize, Sandham, how terrible it 
all is for me! ” 

Morse smiled grimly, and yet liis heart melted towards his wife— 
poor tropical dower, which was so sweet, fragrant, and brilliant in the 
sunshine of prosperity, but which could not hold up its head before a 
wintry blast. 

Lord Gerrnilion was giving a dinner-party to-night, at which Royaltv 
was to be entertained. Lady Betty had been asked to preside; but 
^Morse had received a hint that in the present state of political feeling, 
wlien the relations between parties were so strained, his company might 
be distasteful to the illustrious guests. Morse had accepted the inti¬ 
mation with dignity, and the subject had not been discussed between 
his wife and himself, but there was bitterness in his heart. 

“ I’m sorry for yon, Betty,” he said, “sorry for 3 ''our sake that your 
position to-night may not be as pleasant as when you entertained your 
floyal friends in this house, not so many months ago. There was an 
alternative, dear, however, which did not seem to occur to you—and 
I’m almost glad it did not.” 

“What w’as that, Sandham? Refusing to go myself? Yes, of 
course, I thought of that; but it would never have done. The Prince 

and Princess might have fancied- And, then, we owe a great deal 

to my father, Sandham. He was very, very much annoyed when I 
made the suggestion. You see, I take my place there rather as his 

daughter than- He thought that even from the tactical point of 

view it would be a mistake. You know, Sandham, I have always 
reli< d very much on my father’s judgment.” 

“ Anyhow, the point needn’t be discussed,” said Morse a little 
impatiently. “Pm glad on the whole that you followed your own 
instincts, Betty. And so it’s settled ; and if the Royalties ask you 
whether it is true that I am plotting to overthrow them and to ruin 
England, you can only say that you did your best to find out, and 
that I wouldn’t authorize you to contradict the statement.” There 
was a little silence. Then he said, “But you haven’t told me yet 
what ‘ Fashion’ is saying about me.” 

J.,ady Betty’s eyes were still fixed upon her husband with a wonder¬ 
ing, pathetic expression. She was thinking to herself that he was 
hard to understand, and she recalled a warning given to her at the 
time of her marriage by an elderly relative, since dead, that in reality 
a gulf lay between Morsn and her. Then love had sec-med to bridge 
the gulf cumpletely, and she had laughed at the warning. Now it 
came liack to her with a pang of passionate regret and self-pity. She 
knew that the bridge had given way, and that the gulf was there. 
Poor Lady Bett}’’ felt that of late everything had gone wrong, and she 
could net rightly tell how or why. It was unreasonable to think that 
a mere dilTercnce in political opinion could hold apart so icily two 


232 


^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE,'^ 


hearts which truly loved each other. Lady Betty was not a woman 
of deep intuition, and she was not given to analysis; hut it came upon 
her now that something subtler and stronger than politico ky at the 
root of their attitude towards each other. Six years ago they would 
have forgotten all their differences in an embrace. They would have 
talked over, hand in hand, any such question as that cf Morse’s 
presence or absence at one of Lord Germilion’s ceremoniou'3 entertain¬ 
ments. It had not occurred to Lady Betty before that there had 
grown up a sort of formality even in their endearments. It all came 
into her mind now, and filled her with vague dread, mingled with 
uneasiness and faint resentment. She felt like a frightened child in 
a dark room, and she was angry at having been brought and left 
there. What did it mean? Was he tired of her? Had she disap'* 
j^ointcd him? How could that be? Did not people in high places— 
those among whom she had been trained in the duties of her station— 
compliment her upon her social eclecticism, her tact, her skill in bringing 
together the members of different parties? Had she not cultivated 
these qualities with the aim of furthering her husband’s interests? 
Had she ever been other than sweet and gentle? Lady Betty could 
not reproach herself. She had a half-impulse to rise and go to him, 
and, leaning her head against him, ask him in the old caressing tone 
why he spoke so coldly and treated her with so little confidence. But 
pride held her back. With all her sweetness she was very proud. 
Hers was the pride of race, not that larger, nobler kind, which cannot 
ascribe a small motive, and which gives the full trust it demands. 
Then she saw with a swift jealous pang that he was not conscious she 
was looking at him. Ho was not thinking of her. His eyes were on 
the ground, and he seemed in a reverie. Bhe made a little petulant 
gesture, and sank back in her chair. He looked up. 

“Well, dear, what about my latest calumniator? What has he to 
say—or she ? ” 

“It is only a paragraph about Mr. Kenway’s appointment,” said 
Lady Betty, hurriedly turning away her eyes again ; “ and there is an 
allusion to you in it—I suppose, Saudham, it is you they mean ? You 
are the eminent Badical statesman—and Mrs. Kenway is your Egeria. 
I didn’t think-” 

Lady Betty stopped suddenly, and her hand faltered as she held out 
the paper towards her husband. !S(Dmething struck her like the blow 
of a knife, and there passed through her a thrill of pain and anger. 
Was this the meaning of what had troubled, her? 

He bent eagerly forward to take the paper, and she saw a change 
come over his face which had seemed so hard and indifferent before. 
The change was but momentary; it might bo likened to the play of 
lightning on a rock. In an instant the muscles of the mouth wmre 
tightened again, and the features once more set and resolute. But she 
had seen them quiver; she had seen the gleam of some sudden intense 
feeling in his eyes. 

Lady Betty sat inotionkss while he read the pamgraph. He put 



THE WINTER SESSION 


233 

the paper down again without a word. He knew that he had betrayed 
himself. Lady Betty’s pride stood her in evil stead then. He madfj 
a little movement towards her; but she rose from her chair, and 
turned away. Her face had hardened too; it was white and cold. 
She w’-ould not look at him. A rush of the keenest self-reproach, of 
humiliation, almost of agony, flooded his heart. 

“ Betty ! ” he exclaimed. 

But for his unhaj^py sensitiveness, which seemed to till him that 
she would be ice in his arms, he would have taken her to him. It is 
the curse of such natures that in a moment of crisis some mere cross¬ 
current of emotion may turn the whole tide of feeling, and the rush of 
sympathy becomes as impossible as if it were checked by a dam of 
granite. Morse could not go to his wife and kiss her doubts away. 
Argument upon them, she would, he felt certain, consider an insult. 
He understood her pride. He knew that her manner of showing him 
that she doubted would be to ignore the cause of her doubts. To have 
it admitted that she—Lady Betty—had reason for jealousy would be 
a cruel stab. In that half-world of feeling, where thought and impulses 
are obstacles as real as any in the material world, Morse felt like a giant 
blindfolded and bound. He had in him the strength to clear a wav, 
but he did not know where to turn, and could not lift his hands. He 
had a passionate longing to break free from restraints, to pluck away 
masks, and to face the situation ; to stand his trial—tlie conventional 
here, the natural there, with cold, stern, passionless duty for the 
umpire. With all the sense of hopelessness, revolt, and impatience 
of shams, he had no desire to shirk his obligations. He felt nothing 
but tenderness and pity for his wife, intense sorrow for the division 
between them, remorse for the share, however slight and soon repented, 
he had had in its cause. 

It was a strange moment, in which nothing was said or could be 
said, but in which so much was understood. Presently Lady Betty 
turned to him, her eyes not meeting his, and said in a studiously cold 
mechanical way— 

“ When do the Ken ways leave London, Sandham ? I must call on 
Mrs. Kenway and bid her good-bye.” 

“ I think it wull be soon,” he answered, in something of the .«:ame 
manner. There was another short silence, exquisitely painful. Then 
he said, “ You are always kind, Betty; and you have been very good 
to her.” 

“ I wanted to make things nice for her,” said poor Lady Betty. “ I 
don’t know quite where Farncsia is,” she added, in a cold voice and 
with a sort of simulated interest; ‘‘and I suppose one ought to condole 
with Mrs. Kenway on having to leave England; but all those places 
have hot climates, and she was brought up in the tropics—isn’t it? 
and must feel the cold, so I don’t suppose she will mind the change so 
much—as I should. It’s getting late, Sandham, I must go and dress.” 

She went towards the door. He opened it for her, and she passed 
through without looking at him. 

10 


234 


“77/^ RIGHT HONOURABLE.” 


The paragraph was right. It was through Morse’s instrumentality 
that Crichton Kenway had again been allowed the opportunity of 
accepting or refusing the raine.'>ia appointment. Governorships are 
not things to go begging, and so Lord (.'ouimont had felt. But the 
Ministers were not averse to gratifying the v.dshes of an opponent by 
whose grace they remained in power. There is much revolving of 
wheels and pulling of strings even in minor political affairs. 

After he had definitely announced his determination not to try and 
form a Ministry, Morse saw Crichton at his club, and told him that, 
though a post in the Colonial Office was out of the question, the chance 
of going to Fariiesia was still open to him. Crichton dissembled his 
rage, but his manner gave Morse a new insight into the cause of poor 
Koorali’s unhappiness. Morse detected the false note in Crichton’s 
somewhat effusive expressions. The savage gleam in his eye could not 
he hidden; and the man’s whole demeanour made Morse think of 
a Syrian jackal he had once seen shaking with suppressed fury, but 
n(d daring to show his fangs. It gave Morse an uneasy feeling. For 
the moment he regretted the turn events had taken. Oh, that it had 
1 een possible for him to remain Koorali’s friend—to watch over her 
welfare in England! He cut short an artful digression of Kenway’s 
which had for its object the gaining of some political information. 

“ We shall know nothing till the House meets. In the meantime 
3 'uu’ll think over this suggestion and decide by to-morrow. In your 
own interest I should advise you to try Farnesia; it may lead to some¬ 
thing better by-and-by.” 

lie was moving clf, anxious to close a distasteful conversation, 
hut Kenway detained him. My answer might be given now, Mr. 
j\Iorse, but perhaps I’d better talk it over with my wife. Anyhow 
you have my thanks—and my gratitude. I don’t pretend that I 
shouldn’t have preferred something else to Farnesia, but one can’t 
always have what he prefers. Isn’t it so ? ” 

Kenway’s malign furtive gaze dropped before Morse’s quick glance. 

“ Yes. Life is a question of compromise. Good-bye.” 

“ You are almost a stranger to us now,” exclaimed Kenway. “ How 
is that ? Koorali bade me ask what we have done that you so seldom 
come near us.” 

Morse knew well that KoorMi had sent no such message. A sicken¬ 
ing feeling-of disgust rose within him. 

“ The elections are my excuse,” he said. “ Please make my apolo¬ 
gies to Mrs. Kenway. I shall do myself the pleasure of calling before 
long.” He turned away, with a somewhat ceremonious gesture of 
leave-taking. 

“ Damn him I ” muttered Kenway below his breath. 

Morse did not call at the house yet, nor did he write to Koorali 
about the impending change in her life. She was not consulted In’- 
her husband either. His manner to her since the scene in which she 
had begged for freedom had been gruff, distant, almost unbearable, 
lie seemed to wish that she should understand once for all that he was 


THE WINTER SESSION. 


235 

master. She knew notliino; of the affair till he told her, in no very 
agreeable manner, that he had decideil to co to Farnesia, and that they 
would sail shortly after the meeting of Parliament. She made no pro¬ 
test. Was it not what she herself tia'l urged? 

She read the paragraph which had caught Lady Betty’s attention, 
and her cheeks buined and her heart throbbed with pain. It was 
time that she went away. 

The date was fixed now. Crichton was busy with his arrangements. 
The Grey Manor was let, and soon the London house would be let 
also. In the meantime, Crichton was taking advantage of his oppor¬ 
tunities to get as much hunting as he could, and, with a view to some 
distant future, cementing his interests in Lyndfordshire. 

KoorMi remained in London. She felt dreary and solitary. Her 
mourning exempted her from gaiety. She refused invitations. It 
seemed as if the star of the once-brilliant ^Irs. Crichton Kenway had 
sunk below the horizon. She never saw JMorse. It struck her some¬ 
times as strange that Lady Betty did not ask her to luncheon or dinner 
as of oM. Then she remembered the cloudy political prospects, and 
Lady Betty’s uneasiness and alarm and horror of republican tenden¬ 
cies. Perhaps she was not giving luncheon and dinner ])arties now. 
Koorali could not help wondering, however, whether there could be any 
other cause for this cessation of intercourse. 

One brieht hour in Koorali’s life about this time was scored by her 
visit to the house of Lord Forrest. The extreme of Lord Forrest’s 
concession to the principle of social intercourse was his invitation of 
one or two ladies to luncheon, and he sent through his son such an 
invitation to KoorMi. Lord Arden called for her and brouuht her to 
his father’s house. There was at first something schauderhaft to 
Koor^li’s mind in the aspect of the large lonely house. It looked as 
the palace of Prince Brelfni, in the Irish story, might have looked 
when the false and fair princess had deserted her home. But the 
sw'eet and gracious courtesy of the occupant soon dispelled this gloomy 
feeling. Only three sat to luncheon—Koorali, Lord Forrest, and 
Arden. Lord Forrest had to Koorali a petting and soothing manner. 
He seemed to be in symathy with her—she could not quite understand 
how or why. His voice had a caressing tenderness about it, as if he 
was of opinion that she was somehow misprized, and that he wanted 
to try to make up to her for it. His manner breathed the, spirit of the 
line in Goethe’s immortal ballad : “ Was hat man dir, du armes kind, 
Licthan?’’ “What have they done to you, you poor child?” How 
have they wronged you who ought to care for you ? It was, perhaps, 
only Kooiali’s owm sensitive and excited fancy which made her put 
this sort of interpretation on the chivalrous courtesy of an old man 
who would have been courteous and chivalric to a milkmaid; but she 
could not help believing that his way of receiving her and welcoming 
her bespoke something of a special syrapath 3 \ In her present mood 
she was so much touched by it that she could hardly keep the tears 
from coming into her eyes now and then. She was always moved 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


236 

more by kindness than by unkindness. Unkindness froze her; the 
touch of sympath}!^ alone dissolved the congealed emotions of her bosom. 

Lord Forrest .showed her his pictures, his curiosities, his abundant 
family relics. 'J'here was something wondrously fliscinating to the 
Australian woman in the unbroken connection of the past and the pre¬ 
sent which these family relics preserved and illustrated. One must be 
born of a new country in order quite to understand the feeling. The 
sword that had stricken at Agincourt; the crucifix that had been 
pressed to the dying lips of an ancestral Crusader on the plains of 
Sharon; the mailed glove that had rusted on Bosworth Field; the 
horse-pistol which had been last discharged at Naseby; the plume 
that had been drenched in the blood and mire of Culloden—such 
embodied memories as these made Koorali’s pulses tingle. Ilepublican 
and democrat as she was she could not but see that there is a roman¬ 
tic, a picturesque, a poetic side to the theory of an aristocracy and an 
ancestry; and that what our forefathers have done for us we may, 
despite of Ovid’s Ulysses, sometimes call our own. 

“ This is a great country,” she suddenly said, with an involuntary 
burst of emotion ; “ one must see that.” 

“ It was a great country,” Lord Forrest said, when it was a 
country with a principle.” 

“ There are Englishmen with a principle now,” Koorali began in an 
excited way; and then she suddenly stopped. She thought she saw 
Lord Arden’s eyes turn quickly on her. 

“ Heaven forbid that I should say no,” Lord Forrest answered. 
“ But they do not, such men, usually seek public life; or, if they do, 
they soon find that it does not understand them. But, my dear Mrs. 
Kenway, I don’t mean to fatigue you with our politics here; I want 
you to tell me something about your Australian colonies. Are your 
people really going in for dividing South Britain?” 

Then he began to talk about Australia, and Koorali was surprised 
at the freshness and accuracy of his information. He told her that in 
his youth, when he had some thought of becoming a practical poli¬ 
tician, he had had a conviction that an English statesman ought to 
make himself acquainted with the real condition of all England’s 
colonies and dependencies, and that for that reason he had travelled 
through India, Canada, Australia, and all the colonial territories of 
Great Britain, and that he had tried to keep up his acquaintance with 
them ever since. 

“ But it has been of little use to me,” he said, with a melancholy 
smile; “and of no use whatever to any one else. Mine, I am afraid, 
has not been a very useful career.” 

“ I think it a pity,” Koorali said impulsively. “ You might have 
been a great man.” And then she blushed and thought she was be¬ 
coming far too elfusive. 

“Why do you say.that?” Lord Forrest asked. “You have no 
reason to form so good an opinion of my capacity. Who told you ? ” 

Koon'ili could not resist the kindly imperiousness'of his tone. ISho 


THE WINTER SESSION. 


237 

answerid as a child might have done. “Mr. Morse told me you 
might have had a great career.” 

“ Ah! ” Lord Forrest said. “ That was kind of him. I value his 
good opinion. I admire Mr. Morse.” 

“ So do 1,” Koorali said fervently. 

“We represent the two utter extremes of political fiiith,” Lord 
Forrest went on; “but I respect his convictions, his sincerity, and 
his capacity. Only I think he undervalues the strength of the forces 
against which he has to struggle. He is about as much too far in 
advance as I am, they tell me, too far behind. He will be wrecked 
some day; but, then, he is young—in my sense quite young—and he 
can swim ashore and live to try the sea again; and, if he is like other 
politicians, he can learn how to trim his sails and so catch the benefit 
ot every passing breeze from wdiatever quarter it may blow.” 

“ Mr. Morse is not like other politicians,” Koorali protested with 
spirit. 

“ You think not ? Well, so do I. Therefore he Avill be wrecked.” 

“ A man must steer a certain course sometimes,” Koorali said, 
“even though he runs the chance of being wrecked. He must steer 
to save a sinking ship, whatever the risk to himself.” 

Lord Forrest looked at her with kindly eyes. “ You have put your 
illustration well,” he said. Then he changed the subject, and showed 
her some volumes of letters written by certain of his great ancestors. 

An hour or two passed pleasantly away. Lord Arden did not talk 
much. He left his father and KoorMi to do the talking between them. 
He Avanted to bring them together; he knew if they were brought 
together his father Avould be attracted by KoorMi, and he Avas looking 
out for a time when the protecting presence of such a man might be 
of some service to the Avife of Crichton Kenway. ble was Avell con¬ 
tented Avith the apparent results of his kindly experiment. Lord 
Forrest positively insisted that Koorali must come again. 

The old man came doAvn the stairs and out into the hall with her. 
When she Avas saying good-bye, he took her hand in his. 

“ In the old days,” he said, “ a gentleman—when there were gentle¬ 
men in England—took leave of a fair guest after this fashion.” He 
raised her hand to his lips, and his Avhite moustache brushed her glove 
i-vcr so lightly. Then he bade her good-bye; and she got into her 
carriage. Arden opened the carriage door for her, and closed it Avhen 
she Avas in. 

“ How do you like my father ? ” he asked, as he leaned on the car- 
liage AvindoAv. 

“ Oh, of course, I like him ! I revere him,” she said impetuously. 
“ But that’s nothing; every one must feel like that for him. But I do 
hope, oh, I do .so hope, that he likes me.” 

“Yes; he likes you,” Arden said. “You have a friend in him if 
ever you want one. I know my father.” 

know you both,” Kooiali thought as she drove aAvay, and her 
CA cs Avere wet. 


238 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

“the IN'SEl’ARABLE 8IGU FOR HER.” 

Every one was talking of the expected war; wondering when it was 
to break out. Many were impatient because every now and then it 
seemed to hang fire. Women in drawing-rooms chatted of it with 
light heart, and wished it would begin at once, in order that they 
might be amused. There much talk, too, of the coming popular 
demonstration ; of the meeting in Hyde Park and the procession to 
Palace Yard. Many elderly men in the clubs were of opinion that the 
only way to deal with the whole affair was to plant a few cannon 
somewhere on the line of the procession and sweep the whole rascally 
crew away. “ Put them down, sir ! put them down ! ” d'hat was the 
only policy. Men in the clubs were furious against Morse for the 
encouragement he was giving to these unwashed scoundrels, sir! 
“ That’s what comes of your colonial republicanism, by Jove ! ” 

One day, to Koorah’s surprise, Lady Betty came to call upon her. 
KooicMi had given lier up; thought that for some reason the acquaint¬ 
anceship \vas at an end. Lady Betty looked pale and a little anxious. 
Her n:anner, in spite of its bright frivolity, was constrained. She did 
not talk in her former fresh and frank way. She had nothing to say 
about the discomfort of being the wife of an unpopular jmblic man. 
She said very little about her husband. The conversation turned 
chiefly on the current gossip of London ; social rather than political. 
After a while. Lady Betty began to make inquiry about the climate of 
Farncsia, the society of the place, and the social duties of a governor’s 
wife. 

“ 1 have al'w\ays thought I should rather like a position of that kind, 
if it didn’t take one away from England ajid friends and all that,” 
Lady Betty said vaguely. “ There would be no complications, don’t 
you know. No tiresome politics and socialism, which is all very 
amusing until it gets serious. And, then, it is so nice and so easy to 
make people happy. One has only to give plenty of parties and 
remember faces and say pretty things to the right persons.” 

Lady Betty sighed. It Hashed across her that perhaps it was not 
always so easy to say the right thing when one had to deal with 
exceptional kmperaments. IShe was a little impatient of exceptional 
temperaments, and fine theoiies and principles, and romantic fancies 
and emotions. She did not care for all that kind of thing, except as a 
picturesque background to pleasant life in the best society—the life 
of a model hostess, an affectionate wife, too well bred not to take her 
husband’s devotion for granted. 

Lad}' Betty’s good breeding had the effect of saving her some serious 
heart pangs. She could not admit herself to be in a position of rivalry 
with any woman. Such a consciousness might fester in her mind, and 
in an indirect way inflmnce her character and her actions; but she 


^^THE INSEPARABLE SIGH FOR HER: 


239 


would only recognize its existence when impelled against liei self to do 
so. If, as now, she suffered through it, she would refuse to believe 
seriously in her suffering. She had not crushed her suddenly aroused 
jealousy of Koor^li by any effort of will, any strength of magnanimity. 
She had left it behind her in the depths she had sounded for a moment, 
and had risen again to the smooth surface and sought the shallows, 
determined to venture no more into troubled waters. Nevertheless, 
there was some suppressed agitation in Lady Betty’s way of looking 
at and speaking to Koorali—something which had never been in her 
manner before. She got up presently, and Koorali rose too. 

“I won’t say good-bye to you, Mrs. Kenway, because I am quite 
certain to see you again before you leave for good.” 

“Let us say good-bye now,” answered KooiMi, an impulse seizing 
her. She took Lady Betty’s hand in hers. “I may not have an 
opportunity again of telling you—of saying how much I value all the 
kindness you have shown me since I came to England.” She stopped 
for a moment. The eyes of the two women met. Lady Betty did not 
bend forward and kiss her friend, as she had often done so readily be¬ 
fore. “ I pray that you may be happy, Lady Betty—you and your 
husband.” 

Koorali’s voice trembled a little. She longed to say, “ Oh, cling to 
him, Lady Betty; make yourself everything to him now; trust him ; 
be generous to him—and to me.” With the quick instinct of a woman 
who loves, Kooiali took in the whole sad situation—the division 
between husband and wife ; the utter inability of the one to make any 
response to the other’s need. Her own heart cried out in passionate 
sympathy, but no w'ords would pass her lips. Lady Betty, in her 
fashionably cut mantle, with her pretty smile that no disappointment 
could dim, her charming chit-chat, the outcome of a narrow experience 
that had never ranged beyond courts and drawing-rooms, seemed to 
her at that moment the last woman to whom she could make such an 
appeal; and so the tw^o parted with the usual conventional platitudes. 
and expressions of good-will. 

A feeling of restlessness came over Koorali when Lady Betty had 
gone. She could not sit in the house. Something oppressed her. 
She wanted air and space and freedom to breathe. The afternoon was 
closing in. She put on her cloak and bonnet, and went out. Within 
doors sometimes the winter darkness and solemnity of this great Lon¬ 
don, with the roar of traffic sounding as from a distance, gave her the 
sense of being in a tomb, and the bustle and noise of the streets, the 
hurrying crowd, and the lights and life of the shops were at once a 
stimulant and a relief. 

It was bitterly col<l. The winter had set in with unusual severity, 
and, though as yet there had been no snow fall, the ground was frozen 
hard. Koorali walked on quickly till she reached Hyde Park, and 
then, turning away from the frequented paths, struck into one of the 
quiet walks on the west side of the Serpentine. There always seemed 
to her a curious picturesqueness about this part of the park. She 


240 


‘‘THE RIGHT HONOURABLE:^ 


liked the old gnarled trees, the long vistas which seemed to end at the 
horizon, the grey mist that clung to everything, and through which 
the moving tignres looked like shrouded ghosts. The melancholy 
suggestiveness of it all touched some poetic chord in her nature. She 
sat down on a bench by the Serpentine for a few minutes. The sun 
was setting—the round red ball sinking slowly, with no roseate glow 
surrounding it, but getting gradually duller as the mist covered it, like 
the eye of some w’ounded Titan glazed by the dew of death. There 
was a light hoar-frost on the ground and on the laurel bushes, and the 
network of naked twig and bough showed black against the steely sky. 
The frozen water looked like a sheet of dull glass of the same tone as 
the mist and the sky. Now a gas-lamp was beginning to twinkle here 
and there. The scene was dreary and yet pathetic, and the loneliness 
seemed intensified by the roar of the invisible city. At intervals a 
figure stepped out of the fog, passing by where she sat. One with a 
stately swaying walk seemed to step forth more decidedly than the 
rest; and as she rose to move on homeward again, it halted abruptly 
belbre her, attracted by her involuntary exclamation. She had recog¬ 
nized Morse. 

lie had come out in the same mood as she herself—the expression 
of his face told her that. When she saw and knew him, a kind of 
terror seized her, and she would have hurried on, but it was too late. 

“ IMrs. Kenway ! ” he said. They shook hands. Her hand was cold. 
They looked at each other through the gathering darkness. For botli 
the moment had a world of meaning and of misery. Soul and will 
struggled. There was no pressure of hands ; only the merest con¬ 
ventional shake-hands. At that moment a little gust of wind swept by 
and blew up the dead leaves, and some drops of sleet fell. 'J he even¬ 
ing had changed. Kooiali shivered, more from nervousness than from 
cold. 

“ There’s a thaw coming,’’ Morse said mechanically. “ Why are 
you out at this hour?” he asked, turning upon her; “in this damp 
j.'lace, and so far from your home? It is not good for you—you who 
have never known an English winter.” 

“ I’m going home now,” said Kooiali submissive! * “ I wanted to 
walk—to have some air. And I like the cold grey look of everything. 
It’s so different from anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s more 

])oelic-” She stopped, and gave that hard little laugh he had got to 

know. “ We talk a great deal about our fine scenery and our wonder¬ 
ful sunsets, ]\Ir. INIorse,” she went on, bravely taking up again the 
part she had laid down for a moment; “but I have seen a wonderful 
sunset to-day, and it seems to me that England is the land of sur¬ 
prises, and that it is Australia which is tame.” 

He smiled in an absent way. There was pain in the smile. “ Well,” 
he said, “ you are going back again to your tropical sunsets.” 

“Yes,” she answered nervously; “very soon. 1 ought to thank 
you —for-” 

“No,” he interrupted harshly. “Don’t.” There was a short 



241 


^^THE INSEPARABLE SIGH FOR HERI 

silence, and he resumed. “ The elections are over, Mrs. Kenway, you 
see, and my prophecy has come true. I can do nothing for my 
friends; and I don’t suppose that to-day there is a more unpopular 
public man in England than myself.” 

“ You don’t care?” she asked timidly. 

“Care—I? Not a jot.” He laughed. “ But my wife cares; and 
my father-in-law cares; and my friends care;—all, except, perhaps— 
you.” 

“I care very much that you should reap the reward for patriotism 
and disinterestedness,” she answered softly’-, and felt that she ha 1 
uttered a mere platitude. 

Ho laughed again in a chilling way. “Oh, rewards of that kind 
belong to a better world, don’t they say? Duty is its own reward 
here. Doesn’t an insane wish come over you sometimes that yon 
might break the images and knock down the altars? ” 

She was silent. A sob seemed to choke her. They had been 
walking on. The wind was blowing stronger now, and the sleety 
shower fell more thickly'. They had nearly reached one of the gates 
at the Bayswater side. 

“ Will you put me into a cab?” she said presently. 

“ Certainly.” 

He signed to a hansom, and put her in. When he had given the 
driver the direction, he lifted his hat without a word, and the cab 
drove off. 

KoorMi leaned back with the despairing sense of one who has 
watched the treasure most coveted float by', and must not stretch forth 
a hand to stoj) it. IMorse had said nothing about seeing her before 
she left England. He da;ed not trust himself or her. He would not 
bid her good-bye. 

Morse turned again into the park, and tramped on along the broad 
walk, heedless of the now drenchitig rain. The sudden change in the 
night seemed to harmonize with that flash-like meeting and with his 
new mood. The mist, the thick masses of smoke-like clouds, the 
leafless boughs of the trees tossed wearily by the gusts of wind, the far 
horizon-line of lights on either side, the rain streaming against him— 
darkness, shadow, and liiiht, the great, vast dun sky over his head, 
all taken together in their (ffect, wrought a strange, wild, sad moment 
of emotion in him. He slackened his walk and looked over the lonely 
scene, and with the half-f'oetic egotism which is in certain moods in¬ 
separable even from natures that are not selfish, he seemed to feel as 
if the winds, and liiihts, and shadows, and the sombre skies above him, 
were symbolic of his own life, his long-vanished youth ; the years 
that were darkening round him, the storms of the future already 
heard approaching, the lost hopes and fond illusions of the past. To 
what had it all come—his struggles, his successes, his futile ambiiions, 
even his very love of country and his longing for the welfare of its 
people—to what had it all come? Was it not now every day brought 
more and more directly, remorselessly, into hi- mind that he had 


242 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE:^ 


n)i^sed the one thing he ■would have held most dear in life; that it 
was still there within sight and reach of him, hut as unattainable as 
tiiougb divided from him by impassable mountains or by death itself? 
'I'he grave could not remove it from him more utterly than it was 
removed. For a moment his heart failed him and gave way. He 
came to a dead stand in the middle of the vast, dim, lonely park ; 
came to a stand, and looked across the scene and up to the sky in 
which no faintest light of star was to be seen. Then he flung his 
right arm wildly up, and a sudden cry, an inarticulate, convulsive 
burst of emotion came from him. It relieved him ; it roused him. 
He looked quickly around in all directions and peered through the 
mist, haring he might have been seen by some curious eye. There was 
no one near. One should have been very near to see him and his action 
on such a night. No sound was to be heard but the roll of distant 
carriages and the rattle of far-off cabs. If he had been seen—the 
great tribune of the people, the strong man, the leader of democracy ; 
if he had been seen to come to a sudden stand in the centre of Hyde 
..Park, and flmg up his arm like a man in a melodrama ; if he had been 
heard to utter a cry of passion or pain, what would people have said ? 
Morse found grim amusement in the question. It was not likely to 
occur again very soon he thought; it had not happened before. Yet 
he took account of it; it showed him something in himself of which 
he had not had full perception up to that moment. It gave him pause. 
It was as when a man who has hitherto lived in unbroken health, un- 
comcious of the very existence of lungs and digestion and so forth, 
suddenly finds that some power or nerve or faculty has failed him; 
has failed him once, and may therefore fail him again and again. He 
is not dismayed ; he will not make too much of it; but the tiling has 
happened, and is a new and an ominous expeiience. So Morse felt 
about his sudden outburst of emotion, d hen he set himself against 
the wind and rain, got his hat firmly on his head, and strode forward 
in the direction of Park Lane—to all outward seeming just the man he 
was before. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

MASTERSON AT HOME. 

l^IoiiSE was not a little surprised one morning to receive an early visit 
from the young foreign Envoy wdio has been already mentioned more 
than once in these pages. 

“ You are a man much picssed by affairs, Mr. Morse,” he began, in 
English w'hk-h was remarkable clear, and for the most part conect, 
although strained through the sieve of a foreigner’s mental translation. 
“ So am I. Y'ou may be sure when I come to take up your time it is 
not for the prunes, as Frenchmen say.” 

“I am glad to see you,” Morse answered. “I should be all the 
more glad if I could think that you came to see me ; I mean for the 


MASTERSON AT HOME. 243 

sake of seeing me and having a talk. But, of course, I know you 
don’t.” IMorse and the young Envoy had taken a liking one to the 
other, and both knew it. 

“Ah! we are far too busy, you and I, for long friendly talks. We 
have to leave that to happier men. No; I have something to say to 
you; something for your particular hearing. Well, I was at one ol‘ your 
friend Masterson’s meetings last night, ilike to see things for myself, 
and so I went down. It was far away in the East End. I know you 
like Masterson; and for your sake I wish him well,^although 1 cannot 
have any sympathy for a man who could think of putting himself at 
the head of an anarchist mob whom he is pleased to call ‘ the people.’ 
However, that is not the point. The point is, that I think I recognized 
among his foreign associates two or three men whose faces are familiar 
to me.” 

“ Yes ?” Somehow Morse seemed to know what was coming. 

“Yes; I think they are men who are or wore employed in the 
service of our secret police.” 

Morse might well have exclaimed, “Oh, my i)rophetic soul! ” He 
listened without interruption, but with the deepest attention and even 
anxiety. 

“ 1 think so; yes, I think so. Now, I do not know why these 
men were there or why they should not be there; I do not know if 
they were there on their own account, or were commissioned for some 
purpose to go there ; I know nothing ; I shall not make any inquiry. 
I am here a special envoy for one single purpose; with one mandate. 
I concern myself about nothing else; I .should have no right even to 
ask questions about anything else. I only tell you this in the thought 
that if you desired you might give your friend a caution. Of one 
thing I am profoundly assured—that my Government have no wish 
to injure him more than he is already injuring himself; they care not 
for him as a man, and think not of him. I am equally convinced that 
they have nothing but the highest consideration, respect, admiration 
for you, Mr. Morse. In putting you on your guard, therefore, and 
enabling you, perhaps, to put him on his guard, I cannot be crossing 
any purpose of my Government, if any purpose there is. But you 
must remember I am taking a bold step ; it is a responsibility ; an<l I 
ask of you the utmost secrecy, consistent with your taking thought 
for yourself and givdng your wild-headed friend a caution.” 

“ What possible object could your Government have-” 

“ Perhaps they have not any; or, perhaps, they only wish to bo 
well informed. Perhaps these men were sent to watch some of our 
Nihilists, whom your people obligingly shelter here in London. I 
cannot say ; I do not know ; I do not even try to guess. Now I ask 
pardon for having disturbed you, and taken up some of your time 
perhaps for nothing; nothing at all. The gracious Lady Betty is 
well, I hope ? Is she yet in town ? No ? ” 

iMorse did not try to bring the Envoy back to the subject of their 
conversation. He knew the attempt would be useless. A few words 


244 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


of conversation on general subjects were interchanged, and then the 
Envoy took his leave. 

Morse felt deeply grateful for the kindness which had been shown 
by this singular warning. It seemed to him likely that the fon ign 
police agents, if they were such, were sent over to watch the doings of 
continental anarchists and Nihilists, rather than with any view to 
Masterson’s agitation. Still, if it was the fact, as he had himself 
alnady suspected, that some of Mastersou’s associates were not the 
revolutionary agitators they professed to be, but were actually in the 
employment of a foreign police, it was of the utmost importance that 
Masterson should have warning of it. There was no time to be lost; 
it was not a matter for letter-writing or telegraphing, “1 must go 
myself; I must find Masterson, and tell him at once.” In less than 
live minutes from the departure of the Envoy, Morse found himself at 
the door of Masterson’s house. 

The house in which Masterson lived stood in a great sombre street 
which had been fashionable in its day, and that day was rather recent. 
Fashion, however, had suddenly receded Irom it, and already it was 
being assailed at its extremities, as human bodies are, by the first 
evidences of entire decay. Shops were beginning saucily to appear 
under the entablatures of what had lately been private dwelling-houses 
of stately and forbidding aspect. Masterson’s house was a large lieavy 
building with a great absorbing porch. Its broad flight of steps 
brought at once to the mind a ]>icture of well-calved footmen running 
up and down and at each ascent knocking portentous double knocks. 
No footman now lifted that solid knocker of ancient bronze; no 
carriage stopped in front of that door; nor was the door ever opened 
by any ])ampered menial in livery and powder. The door, indeed, 
stood partly open when Morse reached it; and he was in some doubt 
whether he ought to knock or to walk boldly in. Not knowing, how¬ 
ever, where to go if he did walk in, he knocked, and waited for an 
answer. No answer came, and so he knocked again. Yet no answer¬ 
ing form appeared; and tlien he itushed the door a little n.ore open, 
and entered a great stone-tlagged hall. The hall was without carpet 
or rug of any kind, and echoed dismally to every tread of ISIorse’s feet. 
\'ast stone staircases mounted upwards, but Morse felt some hesitation 
about venturing on an ascent into the unknown regions above. He 
had some dim recollection of Masterson’s study, a small, or compara¬ 
tively small, room—none of the chambers in that mansion were really 
small—on the ground floor at the back. He made for this room, and 
found it. Its door was open; and on looking in he saw ample evidence 
of its still being used by Masterson as his^study. There was a huge 
desk of anticpie and inconvenient form; there were two or three a^^ed 
and decreiiit chairs, on which, apparently, no one was expected to sit, 
for they were heaped and stacked with blue-books and newspapers, 
d'here were pens and ink-pots on the desk; and there were pigeon¬ 
holes crammed with letters, many of them on foreign paper and in 
foio gn languages. There were newspapers stuffed into open drawers 


MASTERS ON AT HOME. 


245. 

—newspapers, many of wliich gave out that queer, damp, musty scent 
which is exhaled by the journals that come to us from India and other 
parts of the East. 

Morse shook his head sadly as he noticed that there were various 
specimens of weapons scattered here and there, and many models in 
] faster and cork of the most approved fashion of street barricade, with 
pamphlets containing instructions as to the readiest way of fashioning 
your barricade out of the simplest materials, and the materials most 
nearly at hand. There were two or three specimen hooks which :it 
first puzzled Morse not a little. They were not much larger than 
ordinary button-hooks, but they were sharp of edge and keen of point. 
One, however, guided him as to its explanation, for it was lying on a 
little pamphlet or treatise in French which professed to teach the 
construction and use of the implements most serviceable for the 
sudden cutting of the reins of cavalry horses, and thus placing the 
riders of the steeds at the mercy of a people rising in their wrath and 
their majesty and their might. From a hasty glance at a paper lying 
open on the de&k, Morse saw that some association or other had been 
offering a reward for the best design for some implement which could 
enable the aforesaid people in the same state of uprisen and righteous 
anger to twist by one single sudden wrench the bayonet of despotism 
from the gun-barrel of despotism’s hireling, the soldier. 

Morse’s heart sank within him at the sight of these evidences of 
preparation for “ the revolution.” But his heart only sank because he 
looked on them as mere evidences of the infatuation into which his 
old friend was dropping deeper and deeper every day. He did not 
attach the slightest importance to them as proofs of any deep-laid 
revolutionary plot against which it behoved society to be on its guard. 
Pilorse had not the slightest faith in Masterson’s revolution. He had 
no faith in it, and he was not afraid of it. He justly thought that he 
understood the temper and the feelings of the English working- 
classes on the whole much better than Masterson did; and he did not 
believe that there was among them the making of a political or social 
revolution; at all events as yet. It had occurred to him more than 
once that if England were to be drawn into a great foreign war by a 
Minister who was supposed to be acting under the influence of the 
Court, and if England were to sustain one great defeat to begin with, 
a sudden republican revolution might be the result. But even in that 
case he felt convinced that poor Masterson’s melodramatic preparations, 
his treatises on barricades, and his weapons for cutting bridle-reins 
and twisting bayonets, would count for next to nothing. 

IMeanwhile nobody appeared to be coming, and Morse thought it 
about time to invite some attendance. The best thing, he supposed, 
would be to ring the bell in this study of Masterson’s. No movement 
could be more natural certainly; but in this instance no movement 
could be less practicable; for the bell-rope had long since fallen down, 
and was lying in a dusty little coil near the chimne 3 '’-piece, looking 
like a snake tliat had just crept out of a dust-bin in time to give up 


“ 77 /£ RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


246 

the ohost on a hearthrug. Morse was thinking Avhether it would not 
he well to go in lor the melodramatic after a fashion in keei'ins: with 
the place and its suggestion^ and shout, “ Hallo, house there!’' after 
the ways of the imitation Elizabethan stage. He heard voices every 
nowand then upstairs; the voices chiefly of women, and sometimes, 
as it seemed to him, the wailing of children. The house was not 
deserted; that was one comfort. AVas he to shout? Was he to 
mount the stairs and explore for himself? Was he to go away and 
write to Masterson and ask him to appoint an interview somewhere? 
While he was debating these questions, finding the situation at once 
odd, interestinfr, and uncomfortable, he suddenly heard a hasty step 
outside, and Masterson himself appeared at the study door. 

The socialist chief seemed surprised and a good deal embarrassed 
at the sight of Morse. Alorse hastened to explain that he had intruded 
into the study only because he could not find any one to direct him 
where he ought to go. 

“Yes, yes,” Masterson said, still a little embarrassed; “we are 
rather an irregular sort of household here; always more or less out 
of order, as you see—as you seel Well, and how is Lady Betty? 
And how are things going? Sit down, Morse; sit down, my dear 
fellow; if you can find a chair—if you can find a chair.” 

While Masterson was speaking he kept glancing quickly and un¬ 
easily at the door, as if in fear of some unwelcome intrusion. 

“Thanks,” Morse answered. “ Never mind about a chair; I am all 
right. I have to put in so much sitting in my life that I like to 
stand when I get the chance. Ko, never mind removing your papers; 
let than stay as they are. I have to go off almost at once; 1 only 
came to say-” 

Just at this moment the clack of a woman’s shoes was heard on the 
stairs and near the door, and in a moment the wearer of the clacking 
shoes made her appearance in the study. She was a tall, harsh- 
featured, angulvr old lady, with thin white hair, and she was dressed 
in a gown of severe and unlovely black stuff. 

“Leaving the hall door open again, Mr. Masterson! Well, I never 
saw such a man ! As if there were no thieves and robbers about, out¬ 
side the house as well as within.” 

Masterson smiled a distressed sort of smile. “I am afraid, Mrs. 
Grounds,” he said, “ that we haven’t much in this house to tempt any 
thief who happens to be pos.sessed of a sagacious mind. Let me intro¬ 
duce you, Morse, ’i bis is Mrs. Grounds, a dear old friend of mine, 
Vv’idow of a very dear old friend of mine; and she is kind enough to 
act as housokce})er for me, and try to maintain som^-thing like order 
in this house; in which 1 am afraid she is not allowed much chance of 
being very successlul.” 

“No, indeed,” Mrs. Grounds assented with a series of severe and 
Jove-like noddmgs of the head; “ you are quite right there, Mr. Mas¬ 
terson. What with one socialist family sick on the drawing-room 
floor, and a socialist baby just brought into this wicked world on the 



MASTERSON AT HOME. 


247 


floor above; <and a colony of Nihilists, and I don’t know what otlicr 
enemies of the public peace established in the attics, and a few nij;ger 
minstrels, or persons looking like nigger minstrels, on the kitchen 
level, there isn’t much likelihood certainly of my being able to keep 
order. Is this gentleman staying for luncheon, Mr. Masterson? I 
dare say he is. Or for dinner, pcrliaps? And there is nothing fit to 
eat in this house, I can tell you, and no time to get anything; for the 
butcher won’t bring what’s been ordered before six o’clock, and it will 
be rather late for ordering anything else at that time.” 

“No, Mrs. Grounds, don’t be alarmed,” Morse said, with a smile; 
“I couldn’t stay for luncheon even if Masterson were to ask me; 
which he hasn’t done, I can assure you.” 

“ I am afraid ]\Ir. Morse would not care much for our style of enter¬ 
tainment in this house, Mrs. Grounds,” Masterson said, with an effort 
to be pleasant. “ This is Mr. Morse, Mrs. Grounds, the future Prime 
Minister of England, people say.” 

“Well, I’m sure, Mr. Masterson, I never said he wasn’t,” the good 
Mrs. Grounds graciously replied. “I wish, sir, when you do btcoine 
Prime Minister, you would do something, bring in some law or some¬ 
thing of the kind, to save honest decent English folk from being eaten 
out of house and home by foreign conspirators of all sorts. 1 wish 
you would pass some law, sir, to put Mr. Masterson, as he is a friend 
of yours, back into the possession of his right senses. I don’t sec 
what is the use of a Government at all, if it can’t do something to 
save its friends from being beggared and brought to the workhouse. 
Excuse me, sir, if I talk too freely—a poor old widow woman offering 
her advice to a great man; but, as you are a friend of Mr. Masterson, 
perhaps you won’t take it altogether amiss of me.” 

“Well, well, Mrs. Grounds,” Masterson tried to intervene in a tone 
half vexed, half timid, “Mr. Morse won’t care to hear any more of all 
this.” 

“Excuse me, sir,” Mrs. Grounds replied severely, “I should leave 
Mr. Morse to s;)eak for himself on that head, sir, if you please. I dare 
say he knows his own mind.” 

“I know my own mind concerning our friend Masterson quite well, 
Mrs. Grounds,” Morse said good-humouredly; “ and I fancy you and 
I would agree pretty well on the subject we have been talking about. 
I have scolded Mr. Masterson many a time.” 

“ You didn’t scold any sense into him, I’m afraid, sir?” 

“Mrs. Grounds evidently docs not believe much iu.,>’our revolution, 
^tlasterson ? ” Morse said, with a smile. 

“ Ilevolntion ? Social revolution ? ” Mrs. Grounds said with a voice 
expressive of boundless scorn. “ Pd revolutionize them, if I had my 
way. A pack of lazy London louts that wouldn’t do a decent stroke 
of work if they could; and a gang of dirty long-hairtd foreigners that 
come over here to escape the galleys in their own country—wiiich they 
richly deserve I’m sure; and I only wish we had the galleys here 
ready for them-” 


248 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE:^ 

“ Come, come, come! Mrs. Grounds,” Masterson interposed, with 
knitted eyebrows and eyes that began to flash ominously. 

Come, come, come! Mr. Masterson. I don’t mind about ‘ Come, 
come, come! ’ I only wish you would say, * Go, go, go! ’ to the lot of 
them. Why must they instal themselves in this house, Mr. Morse, 
I ask you, sir, as a man who knows things and understands things? 
Can’t they revolutionize without eating him out of house and home? 
Have they no lodgings of their own ? 1 assure you, Mr. Morse, that 

unfortunate man hasn’t at this present moment a bed to sleep in. He 
has not^ sir. He has given it up to a socialist friend and the socialist 
friend’s wife—I only hope she fs his wife-” 

“ Now, now, now !” Masterson ejaculated impatiently. 

“ Now, now, now! Yes. I’m talking of now, now, now. I am tell¬ 
ing Mr. Morse of what is going on this very moment -while we stand 
and talk here. Mr. Morse, I dare say you know that this unfortunate 
man had a fine property once, and that he has muddled it all away on 
his revolutions and his conspirators ; and he’ll die in a workhouse, so 
he will!” 

“ Oh, it’s all absurdity,” Masterson hurriedly struck in. “ It’s 
nothing like so bad as that, Morse, I can assure you. My good friend, 
Mrs. Grounds, is too anxious about my interests, and she exaggerates 
things. You see, it’s this way; I come upon a man who has good and 
true ideas and who has the great gift of being able to talk to his fellow- 
men in language that goes home to them—it’s a rare faculty that, 
Morse, as you know well in your House of Commons—and I want to 
make use of him. I set him to address a meeting in the park on the 
Sunday. Very good; what happens then? His employer, perhaps, 
is some wretched petty trader with all the meanness of the greatest 
capitalist about him. He sends for my friend and discharges him. 
What can I do ? I can’t leave that poor fellow and his wife and his 
little ones out in the cold. Now, can I ? Could you V Would you ? 
There it is; that’s the whole thing.” 

“But don’t (hey ever mean to do a stroke of work again?” Mrs. 
Grounds sharply demanded. 

“ Yes; that is a question I was going to put,” Morse said. “ I quite 
accept your point of view, Masterson; but, then, how will it be if 
these men get into the way of merely living on you—quartering their 
wives and their families on you? How it you are converting them 
from workers into spouters first, and paupers afterwards ? ” 

“ Spouters! Paupers ! ” Masterson exclaimed. “ I wish you knew 
them, Morse. You mustn’t really judge of my fellow-workers by any 
ex])eriences drawn from your House of Commons and the dull idlers 
and bloated capitalists and heartless spouters who belong to it. There 
isn’t one of the friends whom I shelter in this house who is not heart 
and soul in the people’s cause, and who would not work his fingers to 
the bone rather than accept one penny of private charity or'^parish 
relief.” 

“ What d’ye call this but private charity?” Mrs. Grounds expostu- 


MASTERSON AT HOME, 


249 

lated. And she pointed first up and then down to denote that what 
she meant by “ this,” was the occupation of Masterson’s house, up¬ 
stairs, downstairs, and in what used to be my lady’s chamber. 

“ It isn’t private charity,” Masterson said, turning on her with 
flashing eyes. “ It is a friend and colleague who still happens to have 
a house, such as it is, and invites his less fortunate friend and colleague 
to come and stay a few nights with him. If Mr. Morse asks me to 
dine with him, and I go, am I accepting charity from him ?” 

“ Ah, go along,” Mrs. Grounds disdainfully murmured. “ I do declaro 
the man is getting off his head altogether.” 

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mrs. Grounds; you ought 
indeed,” Masterson exclaimed. 

“I ought to be, perhaps, but I certainly ain’t,” was Mrs. Grounds’ 
reply; “ not of that anyhow. But it isn’t any use talking.” She 
swept in wrathful majesty out of the room. 

“You mustn’t mind her, Morse; you musn’t mind her,” Masterson 
said, with an effort to be cheerful. “ It’s all because of her interest in 
me. She is a good soul.” 

“ Any one can see that,” Morse said; “ and I am not certain that 
there is not a good deal of sound common sense in what she has been 
saying. Tell me—you said she is a widow of an old friend of yours? 
Who was he—did I know him ?” 

“ I don’t know; you may have seen him. He wxas my father’s 
valet; a most faithful servant; and he was very fond of me when 1 
w'as a hoy. He travelled with us a good deal, and 1 may well call him 
a friend. When he married this poor woman, they bought a house 
and let lodgings there. But things didn’t go Avell; and he died some 
years ago. ^My house was empty then, and I took her to act as house¬ 
keeper for me; and she has done so ever since. And of course she 
has a temper and says sharp things. She can’t help it, you know— 
we have all our little ways; but she is eaten up with the zeal of my 
house,” Masterson added, smiling faintly. “ So I think, Morse, I must 
just let her have her w^ay.” 

“ But it seems to me that that is the very thing you do not do; you 
don’t let her have her way.” 

“ Oh, about sheltering these poor people—these poor friends of mine? 
Xo, no; I couldn’t do that, 'i hat is a matter of principle, of duty, of 
friendship—I couldn’t give way on that, Morse; and besides, she 
exaggerates. Yes, yes; she exaggerates, I assure you. Things are 
not nearly as bad as she wmuld give you to understand. I am not by 
any means the simple-hearted philanthropist she would make me out. 
No, no; oh no; I know very well wdiat I am doing, Morse. I keep 
a ])retty sharp look-out, I can tell you. I am not at all a man to be 
taken in.” 

“About that,” said Morse, with a smile, “ I don’t feel quite so sure; 
and that just brings me to the business about which I have come 
intruding on you to-day.” 

“Intruding! Morse, my very dear friend, please don’t use such a 

17 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


250 

word as that. You are always welcome here ; ” and Masterson spoke 
with the graciousness of a prince doing the honours of a palace. 

“Well, I am afraid I had only too good reason for suspecting that 
some of your foreign associates are not exactly what they profess to 
be, Masterson; and I came to put you on your guard against them. 
I hi^ve good authority for what I say.” 

Masterson’s brow darkened. “ I think we had better not approach 
tliat subject, Morse. You know we can’t agree. I am in possession 
ef all your views. You are a politician, and you distrust men. I 
know these men. Let us not speak on this painful subject any more.” 

“ But I am bound to tell you what I have heard. You must listen 
to me. Come, dear old friend, don’t be quite so obstinate. At all 
events, listen to what 1 have to say. I have good reason for saying it.” 

Masterson stiffly assented; and Morse told him what he had heard, 
and gave him to understand that he had heard it frojn one who at 
least knew what he was talking about. Masterson listened with con¬ 
straint rather than patience until Morse had quite finished—Morse’s 
story was not long—and then he broke out. 

“ I was warned of this,” he exclaimed excitedly. “ I may say I 
knew it would come; I was expecting it-” 

“ Expiecting what? Expecting my visit and my w'arning?” 

“ Expecting that somebody—not you, certainly, my dear Morse, but 
somebody—wmuld come and tell me these men were police agents and 
s()i('s. Y'es; I was warned; but 1 never thought the agents of that 
lirutal despotism could have got over you. No ; that I did not expect. 
And so you, even you, are a victim to their deceitfulness, and are made 
the unconscious tool of their cruelty ? ” 

Nothing that poor Masterson could say could possibly offend Morse. 
He was concerned for his ruined old friend; was anxious to serve him; 
to save him; and it was nothing to him whether Masterson took his 
intervention in good part or not, thanked him or reviled him. He 
listened in perfect good-humour to Masterson’s wild outpourings. 

“ These men themselves told me,” Masterson went on to say, “ that 
the minions of the brutal des}X)tism which grinds down their country 
would strive to injure them here by spreading abroad the rej'iort that 
they were creatures of its own authority and in its accursed pay. 
They warned me long ago of this odious and futile artifice. How you 
could have been talked over, Morse, is more than I can understand. 
But you never much believed in my organizat'on; you never trusted 
my judgment of men; you seem to me to have just the ordinary 
Englishman’s dislike and distrust of foreigners. Of course, I am pei*- 
sonally much obliged to you, Morse; and it shows your friendly feeling 
towards myself, and all that; but you are mistaken about these men. 
Or, rather, you are misinformed ; you are deceived by some who have 
a motive in deceiving you. I am sorry ; I wish you could better 
understand the feelings of that brotherhood which surpasses narrow 
nationalism ; but no man keeps up the freshness of his heart long who 
sits in the House of Commons.” 


^^THE FIRST DAY OF LIBERTY: 


251 

“Then my wariiing is quite thrown away?” Morse said, moving as 
if to go. 

“Not its kindness, Morse; not its kindness; that is felt and appre¬ 
ciated. But I can see through the crafts that have apparently blinded 
you; and when I know men I trust them. I suppose it would be use¬ 
less for me to press you to join us in our great peace demonstration ? ” 

“ Quite useless,” INIorse said. “ I don’t like some of your company, 
Masterson ; and that’s the truth of it. Besides, I am not certain that 
you will not do more harm than good as things stand. If there is 
anything like a row, it will bring discredit on your whole movement; 
and any little gang of ruffians may get up a row.” 

“ Our movement,” Masterson said, drawing himself up with an air 
of self-asserting dignity, “ has no ruffians associated with it. Iluffianism 
stands back abashed before the sanctity of the people’s cause and the 
solemn march of the people’s movement.” 

“ Yes,” Morse said. “ I am glad—if it be so. Good-bye, old friend.” 

^lasterson was softened. He gave his hand with cordiality, and the 
friends parted. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

“the first day of liberty.” 

The heart of Masterson swelled high within him when, after a sleepless 
night, he rose on the morning of the day that was, he firmly believed, 
to begin the new era of international peace. He and his associates 
had arranged to get up a great national demonstration against the war 
policy of the Government and of the ruling classes generally. The 
demonstration was to begin by a monster meeting, which was to form 
itself into a procession, representing all manner of trades and associa¬ 
tions of working-men and democratic organizations; and the procession 
was to march down to the House of Commons and endeavour to impress 
the Government and the legislators with a sense of the national will. 

The procession was to include foreigners as well as Englishmen ; for 
was it not a demonstration in favour of international peace, brotherhood, 
and goodwill? Masterson’s much-revolving mind had been already 
in advance making schemes for a like demonstration in Paris, Berlin, 
Vienna, and St. Petersburg. He proposed to put himself at the head 
of each demonstration, and to associate with him men of divers 
nationalities. It was of the utmost importance that the first demon¬ 
stration should be made in London, where there was no likelihood of 
its being prohibited in advance. The example of London would show 
that its object, if it were allowed to act, was only peace and interna¬ 
tional fraternity among all peoples. If emperors and kings would bar 
the way, then emperors and kings must take the consequences. The 
true union of peoples nothing could resist. 

Masterson had been growing more fanatical and more dreamy day 


252 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


after day. He firmly believed that he had the whole working popu¬ 
lation of Phigland at his back, and that he was in good faith offering 
the Crown and the Government a last chance of a peaceful settlement. 
He could not think but that Ministers would recognize the strength 
of his movement and the necessity for bowing before it. Should they 
fail to do so, then his honest conviction was that by a mere demon¬ 
stration of the number and majesty of the people the monarchy would 
fall and the republic be established. He wrote letters to his friends— 
to ]\Iors8 among the rest—this particular morning, and dated them, 
“ The first day of England’s liberty.” His soul was filled with the 
greatness of his cause and of his movement. He thought it nothing 
but a generous concession to established institutions and ancient 
political creeds which allowed to the Government and to the monarchy 
itself one other chance of existence. He vindicated this concession 
to his own mind by the thought of the strength and magnanimity of 
the people. 

“ The English people are strong,” he said, “ and they know their 
strength; they know, too, how to be merciful.” 

Some of his more impatient followers chafed at what they called 
Masterson’s moderation. Certain of the foreign democrats in particular 
Avere angry Avith him, and insisted that there ought to be no other 
chance given to effete and vicious systems. Some AA^ent so far as to 
say that Masterson AA-as pulling doAvn the international fiag. Masterson, 
hoAATver, was determined; angry opposition only made him more deter¬ 
mined than before. 

From an early hour on the momentous day, and from all parts of 
London, croAvds kept converging upon the appointed centre in the park. 

It Avas a curious and chaotic gathering. Liberty and Peace had 
strange representatives hanging to their skirts. There Avas something 
melancholy and picturesque in the sight of the streams of poverty- 
stricken men and women that trickled through the park gates after 
the more orderly array on that grey December morning—^beery, red¬ 
nosed old men ; unkempt street loiterers, depraved and sickly-looking; 
impish gamins; truculent roughs ; coarse women in tattered clothing; 
wan-faced, Avistful-eyed children;—the usual constituents of a London 
croAvd. But this Avas in some respects unlike a London croAvd; it 
faintly sug::estcd the call of the tocsin, the Ca Ira, the slaughter at 
the barricades. 

There Avere many foreigners—wiry French, SAvarthy Italians, strange 
long-haired Germans, Poles, Eussians,—e\^ery nationality, it seemed, 
leavening the British mob. Some looked eager and excited, some 
indiflerent. Most of them gesticulated more or less. There was an odd 
babel of tongues—a good-humoured buzz, Avith now and then an omi¬ 
nous imprecation. Many women had bright-coloured skirts and shaAvls 
and red head-dresses, and there were red flags Avaving here and there. 
As a ray of sunshine broke the grey clouds, the flaring patches of 
crimson stood out in vivid relief. Some of the better-clad men Avore 
tri-coloured scarves, and noAv and then might be seen a musty blue 


^^THE FIRST DAY OF LIBERTY:^ 253 

and red imiform. More than one mounted man wore the red cap of 
Liberty. 

Even in the main body of the proccssiori the foreign element was 
also distinct. This was to consist of the various organizations and 
clubs we have mentioned; and these came along in semi-military order 
and array, generally with bands, and always with a liberal display of 
banners and gilt letters on white or blue or red backgrounds. There 
were bands in waggonettes also; and there was a huge cart, a very 
tumbril, which bore enthroned the monster petition. But, besides the 
associations which had an obvious and direct connection with the 
movement, there were all manner of odd eccentric organizations, which 
seemed to have attached themselves to it for no particular reason 
whatever but because it was to march, and they thought they might 
as well be marching too. Not a crotchet, not a craze the human mind 
in its queerest moods is capable of, that did not seem eager to display 
itself through its representative organization there that day. One 
could understand the ]'ilacc of the “Middle Clerkcnwell Dcath-To- 
Tyrants Brotherhood;” but why the “Anti-Potato Association”? 
wily the “ Anti-Perforated-Postage-stamp Club ” ? why the “ Woman- 
Not-Man’s Master League ” ? why the “ Union for the Prohibition of 
Smoking by Youths of Tender Age”? why the “Sisterhood for the 
Suppression of Tea-drinking”? All these, and various other equally 
important bands, came tramping and drumming to the spot fixed for 
the start, and became part of the English people manifesting itself in 
all its majesty and strength. So, too, did a good many of the common- 
j)lace roughs. The idle lookers-on, vast in numbers, made no claim to 
strength and majesty. 

'J'he procession assembled in the middle of Hyde Park. It was to 
march along Piccadilly and down St. James’s Street into Pall Mall. 
It was to traverse Pall Mall and Cockspur Street and pass into 'White¬ 
hall and down Parliament Street until it reached Westminster Palace. 

'I here arrived, it was to disregard with noble calmness the rule which 
forbids the assembling of great masses of people too near to the Houses 
of Parliament. In the name of the jicople and of peace it was to enter, 
occupy, and fill Palace Yard. Then Masterson projio.sed that he and a 
certain number of the leaders of the movement should insist on haviog 
an interview with some of the Ministers in the outer lobby and ])re- 
sent the monster petition, d'hat done, the Mini.sters were to be invited 
to come down to the entrance of AVestminster Hall and see for them¬ 
selves whether the vast multitude outside did not amount to the 
significance of a’ national demonstration. Of the strength of the 
foreign contingent—an argument in itself—Masterson was not quite 
fully aware. The Ministers were to be solemnly given to understand 
that day after day a procession as large or larger, Avould come down to 
the House of Commons, and would make formal ]irotest against the 
intended war, until the Government should declare that no war was 
intended anymore. There was to be no force and no intimidation; 
but the majesty of the people was to overawe by its moral gro,ndeur 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


254 

tlie petty policy of a Court and a party. Should, however, the Minis¬ 
ters, ill-advised, take steps to prevent the delegates of the people from 
entering the courtyard of the people’s palace, then the responsibility 
must rest on the heads of those who met a moral pi\»testation by 
forceful resistance. Come what would, the delegates would enter 
Palace Yard and demand speech of the advisers of the Crown. 

The procession moved amid the bare and leafless trees of the park. 
Masterson was on horseback. Upon his figure the eye of the spec- 
lator instantly fastened. A tricoloured scarf round his waist repre¬ 
sented in some new combination of hues universal liberty, equality, 
and fraternity. His lean nervous frame, usually prematurely bowed, 
was erect now. The long thin hair, neglected of late, almost touched 
his shoulders. The grey beard swept his chest. The whole face was 
alight with intense excitement, and the eyes had in them the gleam 
which might be seen in the eyes of a patriot or a martyr. 

As he led the march out of the park, and surveyed as well as he 
might the nature and extent of his following, he could not help wish¬ 
ing that the discipline of his national army was a little better sus¬ 
tained ; and that there were not so many roughs and street arabs and 
communistic-looking foreigners hanging on the skirts of the host. 
There were some banners flying too which even he did not greatly 
care to see amid his ranks. There were the flags of some foreign 
revolutionary clubs, the devices of which had as much to do with war 
against religions as with war against kings. There were men at the 
head of some of these clubs who were well-known to have publicly 
advocated dynamite and the dagger as among the legitimate resources 
(>f “ 'I'he Eevolution.” But what could be done ? After all, these 
men too belonged to the great brotherhood of humanity. If they went 
too far or moved in a wrong direction, who was responsible ? Who 
but the unauthorized agents of an anti-popular and unnatural system 
which ground the faces of the poor and put all true labour under the 
feet of the prince, the peer, and the capitalist? 

Masterson had intended that the army he led should be on this occa¬ 
sion a peaceful array. He had given orders that every one was to 
come unarmed. Before they had begun to move on, some of the more 
trusty of his followers came and told him that a considerable number 
of those forming the procession had revolvers and other weapons. One 
very prudent adviser even talked of the expediency of breaking up 
and postponing the demonstration altogether. Masterson replied to 
this timid counsel by giving the word to march. 

The day was fine, a grey day, with a faint vaporous fog hanging 
over the city, and veiling crude outlines. The sun shone through it 
at intervals round and red. It had been struggling all day with the 
December mist. 7\s the procession moved, the sun prevailed at last, 
and shone with a mild and softening glow over the jiark and the 
streets. IMasterson hailed its light as a good omen. A few of the 
chiefs and captains of the movement rode with him, wearing scarves 
like himself, and like him hearing neither stick nor stave. It was 


«77/A’ FIRST DAY OF LIBERTYT 


255 

intended that men on horseback at various intervals should keep the 
line of the procession dressed up and in goed order. The movement 
was maintained fairly well in the park, but disarray and even disorder 
began to set in the moment the procession got into the streets. It 
became mixed up sometimes inextricably with the rush of tradic; 
here and there it swept the ordinary lines of traffic along with it; but 
in other places it broke confusedly, hopelessly, against some long and 
solid succession of vast waggons and ponderous drays and heavy 
crowded omnibuses. It got into wrangles with drivers and policemen 
and peaceful wayfarers. Sometimes half the procession was cut off 
from the other half, and trying to wait or to hark back was forced 
into greater confusion than ever. Tempers began to be aroused. The 
ordinary street passengers, detesting the whole thing, were wroth with 
the authorities for not sweeping it off the streets altogether. There 
were vehement little collisions with the jiolice here and there; helmets 
were knocked off, truncheons were pretty Ireely used, and there W( iV' 
broken heads before the main body of the [irocession had got into Sr. 
James’s Street. The balconies and windows of the clubs in St. James’s 
Street were crowded with spectators, all of whom, including those at 
the Devonshire Club, the majority of those in the procession regardid 
as “ bloated aristocrats ” whose idle supervision they were disposed to 
resent. Sometimes there were hisses and groans from the line of pro¬ 
cession as it passed under unpopular balconies and windows. Once or 
twice, some rough or street gamin sent a stone flying at a window 
pane. It was already plain that the majestic and peaceful demonstra¬ 
tion was in very fair chance of turning into a disorderly exhibition of 
individual roughness, bad temper, and incapacity. Masterson galloj'cd 
back several times to rebuke disorder and entreat forbearance, in the 
name of the sovereign people. But already his heart was siid\ing 
within him at the prospect. 

Now and again a party cry sounded, and the name of some political 
leader was called out, generally with groans. Alarm was getting 
abroad. Carriages turned hastily into back streets. Ladies’ heads 
appeared for a moment at brougham windows, and were withdrawn m 
terror. Lady Betty Morse was one of those whose carriage came in 
the way of the procession. She had been shopping, and was returning 
to Park Lane, She had heard nothing of the monster demonstration. 
There was a block just where her carriage was drawn up, and hci- 
coachman was not able to obey the order to get quickly out of Picca¬ 
dilly. The crowd thronged round. One or two roughs came close to 
the brougham windows. After her first impulse of fear. Lady BeUy 
sat quite erect. She had some of the courage as w^ell as the pride of 
race. A shrill French voice cried out “ A has les aristocrats.” Lady 
Betty was not an imaginative person, but she began to conjure up 
visions of the tricoteuses, and to wonder if she were in sober England. 

A dour, horrible-looking creature, who carried a crate containing iron 
implements used in some mauufiicture, and who had hooked himself 
on to the procession, peered in at her for a moment, and frightened 


“ 77 /^ RIGHT honourable:^ 


256 

her by his glare of hatred. She heard him in a sullen tone addressing 
the men near him. “ Who is it stops up the roads and tramples on 
the people? Damn the aristocrats, with their carriages and horses 
and their snigfjering jiggering servants. It’s them that makes wars 
and makes revolutions. Who made the French revolution? Wiio’s 
making the English one?—What’s that ?” And he tore on, pressing 
against the rushing throng. “ Hurrah for Morse, the people’s leader ! 
He’s the people’s friend. No war, no Court! Morse, the republican, 
that’s the man for us! ” 

Lady Betty heard her husband’s name caught up by a thousand 
tongues. What did it mean? Was he inciting the English to revolt? 
She pulled wildly at the check-string. A footman turned his scared 
face down to the glass in front of the brougham. He dared not get off 
his perch. 

“ What is it ? ” cried Lady Betty. “ What has your master to do, 
with it? ” 

“Oh, my lady!” shouted the man. “We can’t make out. They 
are saying it’s Mr. IMorse in one of the balconies, and that he is going 
to speak to them. They’ve begun breaking the club windows. But 
it’s passing on, my lady. We sliall be able to move in a minute.” 

Lady Betty uttered a cry of bewilderment. “ Go home,” she cried, 
“ as quickly as you can. Turn down one of the side streets.” 

A policeman caught the horses’ heads. The way began to clear 
a little. He looked into the carriage to reassure its occupant, and 
recognized Lady Betty. He had seen her drop her husband in Palace 
Yard. 

“ It’s all right for you now, my lady,” he said. “ They have mis¬ 
taken somebody for Mr. Morse, and they, are shouting to him to 
si-)eak.” 

fjady Betty drove on, the frightened horses urged to speed by the 
no less frightened coachman. 

But the look of terror did not fade from Lady Betty’s face. It 
seemed to her that she was not to be left one shred of illusion. Bepub- 
licanism had come too close to her to keep any vestige of picturesque¬ 
ness; to be anything but a horror. She had heard her husband’s 
name coupled with that of Masterson, the democrat, heard him 
acclaimed by communists as the people’s leader, the avowed advocate 
of a republic. He the leader of such brutes as these—the inciter of a 
street riot 1 

She did not know w'hat had happened, or try to think what might 
happen. She had not imagination enough to prefigure any startling 
calamity. But she knew enough to make her feel that her little world 
which had been so prosperous was crumbling to atoms. She had a 
wdld longing to fly from all that had brought her trouble, to go back 
to her own old sphere, to seek the protection—not of her husband, he 
had ranged himself on the other side—but of the Court and the aristo¬ 
crats, to whose order she belonged, and whom he hated. She had no 
impulse to cast in her lot with his in the struggle—if there was going 


257 


^^THE FIRST DAY OF LIBERTY! 

to be a struggle. This shock showed her that her natural tendency 
was not to hold with him, but to stand apart from him. 

The policeman was right. A tall straight-featured man standing in 
the balcony of a Liberal club had been mistaken for Morse by some of 
the leaders in the mob. The cry swelled. A roar of enthusiasm set in. 

It was a long time before the mistake was discovered. Execrations 
followed cheers when the man in question withdrew with an air of 
contempt into the building. Not all Masterson’s efforts and protesta¬ 
tions could make things clear. Morse’s name wns shouted, coupled 
with democratic cries and wild appeals that he would show himself and 
go down with the demonstrationists to Westminster. 

A group of 'well-dressed men, not yet in fear of missiles, came out on 
the balcony of a well-known club, and seemed to find considerable 
amusement in watching the wild confusion below. The laughter of 
these men excited the mob to fever pitch. In less than a minute the 
Monster Peace Demonstration had become one of lawless riot. Red 
Hags waved. The few ineffectual policemen who had gathered on the 
skirts of the tumult were beaten down. Fierce revolutionary cries 
sounded; gravel and stones whizzed through the air. Then came a 
crash of breaking glass. Every window on the ground-floor was bat¬ 
tered. Then an infuriated rush on to other buildings; more breaking 
glass—more ruin and destruction. 

Only when Masterson charged into the very thick of the wTCckers, 
and called upon them to right and left in accents of passionate reproach 
and entreaty not to defeat the very object of their mission by this 
display of violence, was some sort of order restored. 

By dint 'of his exertion the procession was induced to re-form 
itself, some few knots of insur-gents lingering to launch stones in an 
aimless fashion at carriages hurrying down the side streets, and at the 
windows of shops in St. James’s Street, then skurryingon to swell the 
main body. 

The procession turned into Pall Mall and was passing the gates of 
IMarlborough House. As we have mentioned more than once, an idea 
had gone abroad that the war policy was favoured or inspired by the 
Court; at all events by some of the royal princes, klany of the 
German democrats in particular were highly wroth with Royalties. 
As the procession was passing the gates of Marlborough House some 
groans and hisses were set uj), and these increased and became tumul¬ 
tuous. Masterson, believing that comparative order had been restored, 
and fully occupied in exhorting his own particular following, was far 
ahead when these sounds began; the main body had nothing to do 
with them. But the rear of the procession came to a sudden halt in 
an irregular and spontaneous way outside the gates, and set up a 
furious groaning, hissing, and yelling. A carriage was at the gate 
Avith some occupants—ladies, it appeared ; no one could tell avIio they 
were—and some alarm was felt by them, seemingly; for there was 
a hasty knocking at the gate, and one of the footmen ran and held 
hasty counsel with a soldier doing duty as sentry. The gate Avas sud- 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


258 

denly sliot open, the carriage and its occupants absorbed in an instant 
Avithin its shelter, and the gates closed again with a clang. As if 
under the fear that an attack of some kind was to be made, the two 
sentries stood in front of the closed gates. The mob—for that part of 
the tail of the procession which had come to a stand in front of Marl¬ 
borough House could now only be called a mob—seemed to resent this 
idea, and began to make demonstrations of violence. The hisses and 
groans were furiously repeated, vituperative epithets in foreign tongues 
*')unding distinctly, and S'lme hands from the outside of the crowd 
began to Bing stones again. Some of the stones broke a few panes of 
^lass in the windows of a neighbouring club. Some shot over the 
gates of Mailborough House, and, as it was promptly reported, 
smashed several panes of glass there. How the story was passed on 
so quickly no one could tell; but the last stone had hardly o’erperched 
the Avail of Marlborough House when the news was spread all over the 
House of Commons that an attack had been made by the mob on the 
residence of the Prince of Wales, and that the ladies of the family 
had been compelled to seek for .safety. At the same time it is rnly 
fair to say that the exaggerated report reached our heroic mounted 
Quixote of democracy, Masterson, almost as tpickly. Never in his 
earlier years had he made his AA’-ay across country with greater 
energy than he now rode back to prevent outrage and disorder from 
gaining the day. When he did get back, he had yet influence enough 
to prevail upon tlie croAvd to move on from Marlborough House, and 
to endeavour to form itself once again into the line of procession. But 
he Avas shocked and grieved to find Avhat a hideous proportion of the 
element of the mere rough had got mixed up with all this part of the 
National Demonstration. His efforts at order were sometimes met 
vvith curses and jeers. One of the foreign democrats, out of whose 
.'lutch he tried to drag a revolver, pointed the Aveapon directly at his 
head. He heard Avindows crashing in as he turned into Whitehall, 
and all along the way there Avere fierce little collisions between those 
who belonged to the procession and those Avho did not belong to it. 

IMasterson had lost his place at the head of the march, and Avas not 
able to regain it. When he got at last in front of the gates of Palace 
Yard, he lound that the yard was already nearly filled with the mere 
vanguard of the procession, and that the police Avere trying to close 
the gates against all further comers. Exaggerated rumours cf the 
attack on Marlborough House had already .spread consternation. A 
large body of police was assembled at Westminster, and fierce deter¬ 
mination not to yield an inch to the miscreants Avas expressed on the 
face of every man of it. He was just able to get oft' his horse and 
squeeze his Avay in; and then he found that the crowd behind him 
Avere trying to force their Avay. The moment he got inside the gates 
he saw that all Avas practically over, so far as any chance of direct 
communication Avith any members of the Government Avas concerned. 
The police and the crowd Avere already in fierce conflict. He saAV men 
brandishing knives ; he heard the patter of the revolver, the police 


FIRST DAY OF LIBFRl'kT 


259 

with their trunclicciis wtre battling for their lives. He rushes! into 
the heart of the crowd to make a last effort in the cause of liberty. 

* ^ * * * * * * 

It was Wednesday, and the House of Commons, according to its 

usage, was sitting from twelve o’clock until six in the evening. Wed¬ 
nesday is commonly given uj3 to the measures of private members. It 
is a day of independent statesmanship. It was an observation of 
Edmund Burke, that he generally found independent men in Parlia¬ 
ment to be men on whom nobody could depend. The independent 
statesmanship of the W’^ednesday is ralher often a statesnranship on 
which no one can depend for any definite and practical results. It is 
the day of the parliamentary Sisyphus, who rolls his measure up to the 
top ot the hill only to have it come rolling down again the moment 
the clock-fingers point to a quarter to six. For then the Speaker, 
according to rule, rises, perhaps in the very middle of some orator’s 
sentence, calls “Order, order!” and proclaims the debate at an end, the 
remaining quarter of an hour being devoted to the formality of post¬ 
poning successively all the other measures on the notiee-paper. 

Morse had come down to the House because he felt a sort of interest 
in some Bill that was to be brought on. He had not thought very 
much about the monster procession and its petition. He had received 
Masterson’s letter with its date signalizing the birth of England’s 
liberty; but he had put it half sadly awa}', and had no expectation or 
fear that anything in particular would come of it. He had been read¬ 
ing in the library in a listless sort of way. He had a huge volume in 
his hands, and every one who passed through was sure he was study¬ 
ing some important political subject. The truth was that the book he 
had taken up was a French translation of some minute Arabian memo- 
rahilia concerning the life and sayings of Mahomet; which Morse read 
with but a languid interest. After a while he got up and went out of 
the library and on to the terrace. The day was soft and bright for the 
time of year and the climate, and the grey and dull-red walls of 
Lambeth Palace looked venerable and picturesque in the mild sun¬ 
light. Morse lit a cigar, and paced the long stretch of terrace alone. 
Perhaps there came into his mind some thought of the eveniu'jj when 
Koor5,li and he walked on that terrace together, and when he did not 
yet quite suspect that he felt too deep an interest in her. Anyhow 
his thoughts took a somewhat melancholy turn. 

Suddenly he began to hear great noises somewhere in the near 
distance. There was a sound as of commotion, of multitudes, even of 
struggle. Then he remembered all at once Masterson’s first day of 
liberty, and the monster procession, and the petition that was to be 
presented; and he began to be afraid some disturbance was taking 
place. Heavens ! was that the sound of fire-arms—quite near ? 

There were several groups of members on the terrace. A great 
number of men had come down for the express purpose of seeing the 
procession and the whole business. Some had been posted high up in 
the Clock Tower to have the better view. A sudden piece of new^- 


26 o 


‘^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.'^ 


was given to the members on the terrace as the crack of the revolvers 
sounded, which made them all start up and run as if they had heard 
the division bell. One man whom Morse knew personally ran past 
him and jiist stopped to cry out, “ Hallo, Morse, your democrat friends 
are playing the very devil with us! Haven’t you heard? They’ve 
been breaking windows at Marlborough House!” and then he vanished. 

Morse had the power of keeping cool in an emergenc,y. He did not 
believe that Masterson, chivalrous though misguided Masterson—not¬ 
withstanding his vague plot to overthrow the succession—would sanc¬ 
tion any vulgar attempt on Marlborough House. But he did fear that 
]\Iasterson’s socialists might have proved too many for him, and Morse 
instantly reflected that if any disturbance were threatened, he himself 
might be of some service as a peacemaker. So he strode at the best 
of his s})ecd through the covered passages of echoing stone and the 
open courtyards which lead from the terrace directly into Palace Yard. 
When he got within sight of Palace Yard he could make out nothing 
at first but a confused sea of men’s furious and maddened faces; he 
‘•ould hear nothing but a storm-wind of yells, curses, shouts, and 
howls. In another moment he could see plainly enough that the 
police were striving to make head against a mass of people who had 
got possession of Palace Yard. 

Morse had a quick eye, and could take in things coolly when a 
critical moment came. He was a little thrown ofl' his balance for an 
instant when he saw what we may call the first blood drawn. It is 
a sickening sight that first blood one sees drawn in any manner of 
conflict, whether it be the blood of one’s comrade on a battle-field, or 
it spouts from a truncheoned head in a street riot, or reddens the black 
and glossy side of the bull in the arena of Madrid. The first blood 
Morse then saw drawn was from the face of a policeman whom he 
knew personall}’-, a civil, quiet, obliging creature, who was struck on 
the cheek by a sharp and jagged stone. The second blood drawn was 
by the policeman’s truncheon from the skull of the processionist who 
happened to be nearest to him. Then Morse saw in a moment what 
had happened. Part of the procession had succeeded in getting into 
Palace Yard. The police were struggling hard to get the great gates 
closed against the remainder of the crowd, and the still excluded mob 
was fighting fiercely to get in. Stones were flying in from the outside; 
the police were all but swallowed up by the crowd inside. At last 
they were evidentlj’- compelled to fight for their lives, truncheon in 
hand. 

An inspector of police whom Morse knew very well by sight was 
striving to make his way into the crowd. He saw Morse in pas.sing, 
and appealed to him. 

“Speak to them, Mr. Morse,” he cried out. He had to cry out in 
good earnest in order to be heard above the din of the strugg'e. 
“ d'hey’ll listen to you, perhaps.” 

jNlorse caught at the idea. He was standing on the raised pathway 
whicli runs along the side of Palace Yard in front of the cloister out of 


“r//^ FIRST DAY OF LIBERTY^ 


261 

which the courtyard oj ens where the Speaker has his official residence. 
He was lilted, therefore, a little above the level of the crowd. It 
struck him even in that moment as an odd and whimsical situation 
for a public man who was supposed to be a possible Prime Minister to 
have to try to harangue a furious mob within the very precincts of the 
Imperial Parliament. 

‘‘ Fellow-countrymen, working-men, friends ! ” he called out, and his 
voice rang across the great square, and wakened echoes which gave 
back his words. “ Hear me, I beseech of you—you know I am your 
friend. Desist from this violence, which can only do harm to you and 
to any cause you have at heart.” Then he stopped. “ No use,” he 
said to the police officer; “they are beyond that.” In truth his 
attempt was hopeless. Only the echoes appeared to pay any attention 
to his words, and the echoes made mockery of them. 

Already the police officer was lost in the crowd. He had recognized 
the futility of eloquence at such a moment. 

Morse too plunged into the thick of the crowd, hoping to see some 
faces he knew and men to whom he was known; hoping to prevail on 
some leaders of the procession to wmrk for the restoration of discipline 
and order. He could see the sunlight glittering on the helmets of 
a cluster of cavalry drawn up on the far side of Parliament Square, 
and evidently kept in waiting lest worse should come of it; and even 
in that moment of confusion he could not help admiring the discipline 
which kept them there unmoved within sight of the struggle between 
police and people, only to intervene when the civil power could no 
longer hold head against disorder. Then in an instant he saw Master- 
son a short distance from him. The chief of the socialists was striving 
with all his might and main to keep his people from their attack on 
the police. He was wildly gesticulating, and kept pointing to the 
three-coloured sash he wore, as to some emblem of order and brother¬ 
hood which both sides were bound to recognize. He had lost his hat, 
and there was a great cut on his temple from which blood was flowing, 
but of which he did not appear to be conscious. Morse saw a police¬ 
man rush at him with uplifted truncheon. The man evidently took 
IMasterson for a wild instigator of force. Morse made a desperate effort 
to get hold of the policeman’s arm and to drag him back. It was too 
late ; it was hopeless. He distinctly heard two dull heavy blows fall 
on the bare head of the unfortunate leader of the social democrats; 
and he saw poor IMasterson turn a ghastly white in the face, and then 
sink in the midst of the fighting crowd. Morse forced his way tlirough 
the crowd by sheer strength, caring nothing for the chance of random 
blows from either side, and he got to where poor Masterson lay, and 
tried to lift his head. Even in all the fury of the struggle some 0^ 
those near recognized Morse, and saw that he was striving to save 
somebody, and they lent him a wdlling hand. 

Morse took up the lean body of Masterson in his arms, and sternly 
ordereii those around him to make way, that the injured man might be 
carried into a place of safety. Morse was careful not to mention Mas- 


202 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE” 


lerson’s name, or to allow the face of the man he bore in his arms to 
be seen by the crowd around. He felt that if it were known that the 
leader of the movement had. been already stricken down, the passion 
for vengeance would render the socialist mass more desperate than 
before. Some of the policemen who were stationed at the door of the 
members’ entrance to protect it, and whose duty did not as yet bring 
them into any collision with the crowd, saw that Morse was tryintr to 
rescue some one, and made way for him, and would have helped him 
to carry in his burden. Morse, however, refused to allow any one to 
bear his ])00r old friend but himself, llis heart w'as bursting as he 
here the now almost senseless body. The long grey floating hair was 
clotted hero and there in thickening blood; the white face looked 
waxy and almost transparent; death might have already come, so 
corpse-like was the load that Morse was bearing. The contrast was 
striking; would have been most striking, indeed, to any one who 
knew that Morse and Masterson were about the same age—Morse 
straight, strong, elastic of tread, with the free vigorous movements of 
manhood’s best years; and the thin, wasted, grey, and shrunken old 
man whom he was carrying so easily in his arms. 

Morse strode through the members’ entrance, and into the cloak¬ 
room ; a long narrow room on the right, looking rather like a prison 
corridor, except for the cloaks and coats and umbrellas of members 
that hung in the alphabetical order of their owners’ names on pegs, 
surmounted by cards bearing each name in big-written round-hand 
characters. 

Pile some coats there,” Morse said to one of the attendants; in 
front of that fire.” One or two huge fires were burning cheerily. 
“Not too near; take any coats—there's mine, just there; lay them 
down nicely. Yes, that will do. Now help me to stretch him softly 
there ; he is wounded.” 

“My God! his skull’s regular stove in,” the attendant said, with a 
shudder. “ What was he a-doing of, Mr. Morse? ” 

“ Trying to preserve order and save human life—that was all,” 
Morse answered grimly. 

They laid him gently on the heap of coats. By this time two or 
three members came in who had seen Morse with his burden; one 
among them was Mr. Caleb, a skilful little surgeon who had lately 
been tal'en with the ambition of a I'arliamentary career. He had run 
to the spot to offer his services. He looked at the wmimds in Master- 
son’s head ; felt his pulse ; partly opened his evelids. 

“Bad business,” he .said decisively. “Nothing to be done, I am 
afraid, Mr. Morse. Do you know the man ?” 

“Yes ; a dear old friend of mine.” 

“ How on earth did he get into the row^ ? ” 

“As he got into every misfortune that has come on him,” Morse 
said quietly; “ in the general honest thought and common good to all. 
It’s Masterson himself.” 

They stood beside him silently. ]\Ir. Caleb looked closely info his 


^^ONE WHO CAN PROVE.’’ 


263 

face, and was filled with a new and keener interest. The little group 
was now almost alone; Morse, Mr. Caleb, and the dying man. The 
increasing noise of the riot had drawn all others away to the more 
exciting scene outside. Masterson was breathing in a heavy stertorous 
way. He opened his eyes once or twice, and looked vaguely up ; not 
seeing anything, not hearing anything. Morse knelt beside him. 

“Do you know me?” he said, in tones that had unspeakable 
tenderness in them. “ Masterson, my dear old friend ! ” 

The voice did not recall the dying man to consciousness, but it 
apparently brought with it some memories of the world and the pur¬ 
poses wliich he was leaving behind. A sort of light came over the 
pale grey face, and the lips were seen to move, and were evidently 
striving to give utterance to words. Morse bent down his ear to catch 
the sound. In a faltering tone, that sounded hollow and far away’", 
Masterson spoke at last. The only words tliat Morse could make out 
were these words— 

“ The first day of liberty! ” 

Then the mouth and the eyes closed again, and a shudder went 
chrough the prostrate body ; in another moment all was over. 

“ The first day of liberty! ” said Morse, as he rose from his knees. 
“ Yes ; the first day of liberty has set him free.” 

Mr. Caleb looked up suddenly at Morse, and then looked away. 
He saw that there were tears in Morse’s eyes. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

“one who can prove.” 

West-End London, when it woke up next morning and had time to 
get hold of its newspapers and grasp the full meaning of the columns 
of news under big startling lines of heading, became stupefied by the 
reality of the events now brought clearly and fully to its knowledge. 
Jt was something bewildering to a quiet man who had lived in London 
all his life and never known of anything happening there more start¬ 
ling than a murder at the East-End, or a fog, or a great unexpected 
snowstorm, to find St. James’s Street a scene of desolation, and to 
learn that there had been a terrible riot of something like a revolu¬ 
tionary character in the very precincts of the Houses of Parliament; 
that Palace Yard had been stormed by an armed mob; that the police 
had to fight for their very lives ; that the troops had been called out; 
that blood had been shed lavishly; that many of the rioters had been 
killed or wounded, and that their leader, a well-known ])opular dema¬ 
gogue, lay dead, ’i'hese things one read of in histories of the time of 
the Georges. One had read of Porteous riots in Edinburgh, and one 
took it for granted that there should be revolutionary commotion in 
all manner of continental cities and frequent disturbances in the rowdy 
quarters of New York. But who expected a real r ot and shedding of 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


264 

blood in London ? The Hyde Park riots of 186G amounted, of course, 
to nothing more than a rough piece of pleasantry and horse-play on 
the part of a comparatively harmless mob. But the morning j^apers 
now, with their headings in huge capitals, “Fearful riots. Clubs 
and shops stoned and wrecked. Marlborough House attacked. The 
troops called out. Many Jives lost. Mr. Masterson killed!” and 
other such attractive and horrifying announcements brought home to 
the peaceful Londoner’s mind the fact that the wild-beast temper in 
man is not to be softened and smoothed out of him by any manner 
of civilization. 

Every policeman who kept his wits about him testified to the same 
effect as to the beginning of the riot. A large part of the procession 
had been allowed to enter Palace Yard. Then, as the crowd seemed 
likely to fill the whole place, the order was given to close the gates. 
Thereupon the police declared that certain ringleaders, foreigners in 
appearance, had cried out that the way must be forced and the build¬ 
ing captured, and that these men had pulled out revolvers and daggers, 
and exhorted their followers to do the like. Some of them did succeed 
in forcing their way in before the gates could be closed against them ; 
and stones were thrown in showers and revolvers were discharged. 
Then the police, believing very naturally that the whole movement 
was an organized attack upon the Houses of Parliament, felt bound to 
fight it out in the best way they could. The first result was that the 
])ocr “ apostle of affliction,” the sworn friend of the working-man and 
the proletaire, the sworn enemy of the aristocrat and the capitalist, 
the sincerest of dreamers, the purest of fiinatics, was lying dead in the 
cloak-room of the House of Commons, all his dreams knocked out of 
him by a mistaken blow from a ])oliceman’s baton. 

So much for the past; but what about the future ? This was the 
(question which London society, and all the propertied, trading, and 
shoi3keeping classes of London kept asking for anxious hours. Is it 
all over; or was yesterday’s riot but an affair of pickets and out¬ 
posts, preliminary to a great revolutionary and anarchic movement— 
a nihilism of the London garrets and slums? There was deep and 
widespread anxiety throughout the day. Seldom, indeed, does any 
public event stamp itself for many hours on the outer aspect of London 
life. This time the faces of men in the streets bore visible impress of 
the calamity which had happened, and terrible expectation of other 
calamities yet to come. The streets were patrollcil by troops. The 
police were vindictive. Prisoners were being brought up at the police 
courts hourly, and committed for trial. Inquests were taking place at 
various hospitals. . 

Happily it soon became evident that there was no further cause for 
alarm. There was no common desire amongst any considerable part 
of the population to create fresh disturbances. There was no really 
revolutionary organization having for its object the overthrow of any 
settled institutions. There was no watchword of social revolution. 
Cool-headed magistrates, police efflicia’s, and others, found that the 


‘^ONE WHO CAN PROVE: 


265 

more they looked into the actual facts, the less and less evidence could 
they discover of anything like a widespread conspiracy or arrangement 
of any sort to bring about yesterday’s catastro[)he. What they did 
find, and became more and more convinced of every hour, was that 
the occasion had been deliberately turned to account by a small band 
of hired agents for the purpose of getting up a formidable disturbance. 

Long before the evening had fallen in a clue had been found to an 
undoul3ted conspiracy of this kind; and the impression on the minds 
of those who knew all that was to be known, became stronger and 
stronger that foreign money and foreign agency had been largely em- 
])loyed to hire professional miscreants, and to force on a serious conflict 
between the populace and the authorities. Such a disturbance hap¬ 
pening on the very verge of a threatened war could not but discredit 
and damage the English Government and England herself in the 
eyes of all foreign States, and that undoubtedly was the effect which 
the disturbance was intended to have. The conclusion was easily 
arrived at. The foreign money employed was the money of the State 
with which England was about to go to war. The money was spent 
that England might be stabbed in the back at a moment of peculiar 
gravity and danger. 

While London was in this state of anxiety, commotion, and trepida¬ 
tion, a fresh surprise and shock was produced by a letter which ap¬ 
peared in the Piccadilly Gazette. The letter was printed in large 
type, and was signed, “ One who can Prove.” This was what the 
“ one ” undertook to prove : “ I tell the English Government and the 
English people that yesterday’s riot was got up in the interest of a 
foreign State by persons who spent foreign money to promote it. I 
further tell the English Government and the English people that the 
real head of the conspiracy, through which the foreign money was 
spent in order that English blood might be spilt and England herself 
weakened at a terrible crisis, is the leader of the Kadical and the 
peace party, the Right Honourable Sandham Morse, M.P., whom 
Radicals and lovers of peace have long been designating as the coming 
Prime Minister of England.” 

London was much startled by this letter; did not indeed quite 
believe it; but was too much shaken in all its established ideas to dis¬ 
believe anything very strongly. In the clubs, men said, “ It can’t be 
true ; of course Morse will contradict it.” But the papers came out 
next day, and there was no contradiction from Morse. The “One 
who can Prove ” returned to the charge. He repeated in the Picca¬ 
dilly Gazette the precise accusation he had made, and he challenged 
contradiction. He added a fresh assertion. He insisted that there 
was, or had been, an organization under Masterson to set aside the 
succession on the death of the reigning sovereign, and to establish a 
republic in England, and that this organization was patronized and 
supported by the Right Honourable Sandham Morse. “ Let him deny 
it,” the letter concluded, “ if he can; if he dare! ” 

Still there came no contradiction from ^lorsc, and at last there 
18 


266 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.” 


appeared in all the morning papers a communicated piece of informa¬ 
tion, to the effect that Sir Roderick Fathom, M.F., intended that 
evening to move the adjournment of the House of Commons after 
question-time in order to call attention to certain statements made in 
the Piccadilly Gazette^ and to ask whether the Government had any 
information to give to the House on the subject. The paragraph 
significantly added : “ It is expected that Mr. Morse, M.P., will be in 
his place, and will offer some explanation to the House.” 


CHAPTER XXXIir. 

“ A SCENE IN THE HOUSE.” 

The House of Commons was crowded in every ]-)art. The chamber 
proper did not give its legitimate occupants seats enough or nearly 
enough, and members, therefore, swarmed into their galleries at either 
side. The places assigned to jjeers, to foreign diplomatists, and to 
distinguished strangers were every one occupied. Princes looked 
serenely down from “ over the clock ; ” one or two great authors were 
happy in having seats secured for them “ under the gallery; ” the 
crypt in which ladies are stowed away glistened with silks and velvets, 
jewellery and flashing eyes. 

There were two women in that gallery, far apart from each other, 
neither aware of the other’s presence, to each of whom the rumours of 
the expected scene were as rumours touching the life or death—nay, 
more—the honour of her nearest and dearest. Lady Betty, at once 
timid and desperately courageous, had come to the House with her 
father to hear and know the worst. Slie had heard on that day only 
of the extraordinary charges in the Piccadilly Gazette. Her husband 
she had not seen since the riots. Even had they been together she 
would have shrunk from questioning him, as she might have shrunk 
from probing a gaffing wound. But to sit still and wait the course of 
events was an impossibility. She was too keenly strung to be inactive 
in a crisis. And so she had come in a strange tumult of feeling, half 
determined to brave it all out, half hoping that her presence side by 
side with a great Tory peeress—a connection of her own who had an 
appointment at Court, and under whose immediate protection Lord 
Germilion had jdaced her—would shield her from identification with 
her husband’s revolutionary schemes, whatever they might be. 

Koorali was in the gallery too, but she was in a very'^different mood 
from Lady Betty. Scorn of the accusations against Morse, unswerving 
fiiith in him, the desperate longing of a loving woman to be near him, 
to see how he would comport himself in the face of his enemies, 
perhaps a faint subtle hope that he might know she was there, that 
lier sympathy might somehow reach him—all worked within her. 
She was cold with nervous excitement. As she sat in her place, very 


‘Vi SCENE IN THE HOUSE! 267 

still, her bands clasped tightly together, her eyes bent downwards, she 
could hear her own heart beating. 

Lord Germilion, a small, white-haired old man, with a very erect 
carriage and his daughter’s bright dark eyes, had got a seat among his 
peers. Lord Forrest, who had hardly ever seen the House of Commons 
before, came down that evening, and was shown by his son where and 
how to tind a place. Mr. Paulton, the American Minister, was in the 
Ambassaelors’ Gallery, side by side with the young Envoy from the 
great foreign State presumed to be England’s enemy, the young 
Envoy whom Crichton Ken way saw in deep conversation with Morse 
at Lady Betty’s party. In the mysterious caves of H^olus, beneath 
the flooring, where the process of ventilation is carried on, many stow¬ 
aways, if one might thus describe various influential and ]u-ivileged 
persons, were sheltered, and found that they could hear, with quite 
surprising clearness, what was going on over their heads. 

Morse took his seat on the Opposition side, below the gangway. A 
low murmur went round the House as he entered. There was no 
“ demonstration; ” his own side of the House received him in absolute 
silence. One or two men leaned out of their places and shook hands 
with him. He was evidently very unpopular with the Liberal party 
g' nerally, and the Tories were furious against him. The House was 
going through its list of questions when Morse came in. How slow 
and stujiid all the questions and answers seemed to the listeners genr- 
lally, to the ladies in the gallery for instance ! How tantalizing the 
manner in which every questioning member refused to be content 
with one answer, and persisted in putting further question upon 
question! How can anyone have the face or the heart to interpose 
with such trumpery matter at such a time? See, there is Mr. Morse 
getting up and walking deliberately out of the House I Is he really 
going away for the evening? Will he not return? Are we not to 
have our scene after all ? The thought was positively maddening. 
It disturbed more than the occupants of the Ladies’ Gallery. Through 
all the galleries and through the House itself ran the wildfire alarm of 
anticipated disappointment; the dread that the anxious subject was 
for some reason or other not to be raised, and that the House would in 
due course proceed, uninterrupted, with its ordinary business. 

Then a sudden and a curious change came over the minds of the 
spectators. A few moments ago every one was longing to have the 
questions cut short. Now, every one wanted to have that expanded, 
iterated, multiplied. If the questions were suddenly to collapse, the 
House ml'iht at any moment find itself plunged into its regular routine 
of business, and once in it could not get out again, and th6 anticipated 
“Morse incident” could not happen that evening, and the scene not 
taking i>lacc that evening would probably not take place at all. 
Besides, how couhl one count on getting a seat anywhere to-nlorrow 
evening? In many a brea'st, beneath frock coat and bodice alike, the 
anxiety began to swell to something not far from agony. 

A deep sense of relief suddenly passed through the House. ]\Iorse 


268 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE. 


bad returned to bis place. Tbe expected scene, tberefcre, was not 
doomed to go by default. If tbe Ministerialist wbo was understood to 
have taken tbe matter in band should persevere in bis purpose, there 
was no reason why the House should be disappointed. Is tbe 
Ministerialist in bis place ? Yes ; there he is. Sir Roderick Fathom, a 
tall, spare, white-whiskered, country gentleman of the highest respec¬ 
tability in his county and in the House, who had hitherto distinguished 
himself by his unbending Toryism and his unceasing interest in tho 
question of the malt duties and of local taxation. 

At length the list of printed questions is exhausted. About a 
thousand pairs of eyes, many beaming through spectacles, are turned 
to Sir Roderick Fathom. But, lo! instead of his rising, a leading 
member of the Opposition on the front bench got up and blandly 
bcgued leave to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it was 
the intention of the Government this session to bring in any bill to 
deal with the question of the duties on foreign leather. The Chancellor 
of the Exchequer made answer that the Government were giving the 
subject their best consideration, and would be in a position to inform 
the House at a later period. It was yet very early in the session, etc., 
etc. Questions with which a Government does not particularly care to 
deal are always in one of two stages. It is too early in the session to 
do anything with them or it is too late. Anyhow, that is done with; 
and now for the scene. No; an independent member of the Opposition 
sitting below the gangway gets up and jmts a question about foreign 
policy and the recent news from the East. This, too, had to be politely 
evaded. Now, surely. Fathom is going to get up ? Not he ; a man 
sitting next to him rises with some other extemporized question; and 
wdien he sits down, and the Speaker, previously made aware of what 
is to come, positively looks towards Sir Roderick Fathom, that gentle¬ 
man is so closely engaged in conversation with one of the Government 
wiiips who has come up behind him, that he almost loses the oppor¬ 
tunity at length ]ilaced within his reach. But he docs spring to his 
feet before the time has quite gone, and the Speaker, pointing to him, 
calls out, “ Sir Roderick Fathom,” and every one, relieved and contented, 
settles down to listen. 

To the ladies in the gallery, or most of them, and to uninitiated 
male strangers. Sir Roderick’s is a queer and a meaningless performance 
when he does get up. He is heard to mumble something about 
“ urgent public importance,” and then he goes up to the table just in 
front of the Speaker’s chair and he deposits a scrap of paper there, and 
he hurries, or indeed scuttles, back to his place. What he has done is 
this : he has asked for leave to move that the House do now adjourn 
in order that he may obtain an opportunity of discussing “a definite 
matter of urgent public importance.” It is one of the pleasant and 
practical ways of the House of Commons not to do anything directly, or 
after the fashion which any sane man would adopt of his own accord. 
Under the new rules of the House, if a man wishes to call attention to 
some urgent public matter which has suddenly come up and is not set 


SCENE IN THE HOUSE: 


269 

down for discussion on that particular day, he is not allowed to say out 
like a rational creature that he wishes to discuss this question, and ask 
the permission of the House to discuss it. He has to profess a desire 
for the instant adjournment of the House, which he does not want; 
which nobody wants or thinks of granting; which he wants least of 
all, because if he is anxious to have a certain subject debated at once, 
it is evident that it cannot be debated if the House incontinently 
breaks up. But if he is allowed to move the adjournment he can, 
by virtue and favour of that technical motion, bring up the question he 
wishes to have discussed, and when all has been said that he wants 
to say or to hear, he can withdraw his motion for the adjournment of 
the House, and there is an end of the matter. If there be any one of 
the unsatisfied who does not admire the practical wisdom embodied in 
this form of proceeding, and who does not see how absolutely necessary 
it is that a man should pretend to want something he does not want 
in order to obtain permission to ask for something he does want, then 
that sceptical creature would in a past age have failed to see the wisdom 
which inspired the law courts with the invention of John Doe and 
Richard Roe. 

However, in order to get permission to move the adjournment. Sir 
Roderick has under the rules to obtain the support of not less than 
forty members. “Not less than forty members,” so declares the rule, 
“ shall thereupon rise in their places to support the motion.” The 
Speaker invites the House to subject Sir Roderick and his motion to 
this test; and the wondering strangers see nearly all the members 
suddenly jump to their feet and stand up, and after a second or so 
jdump down again. The whole House, or nearly so, wanted the scene 
and the personal explanation, and therefore it rose pretty much as one 
man, and then as one man sat down again. Morse himself was one of 
the first to rise. The Speaker pointed to Sir Roderick Fathom. That 
suddenly conspicuous personage got up for the third time. And now 
for the scene at last. 

Sir Roderick began by asking whether Her Majesty’s Government 
had any information to offer with regard to a subject which had excited 
the profoundest public interest. He alluded to certain statements 
made by a well-known evening journal, containing the gravest and 
most important charges against a very distinguished member of that 
honourable House—one who had held a high position in the late 
Administration ; he referred to the right honourable gentleman the 
member for Whittlestown, whom he saw now in his place; whether 
the Government could say if the allegations were true, and whether, 
if so, they had any communication to make to the House as to any 
steps they intended to take. Then Sir Roderick sat down, glad that 
his task \vas over, but flushed with the conviction that the eyes of 
Europe were on him. 

Before any one else could move. Lord Arden leaped to his feet, and 
begged to ask, in the first instance, whether the honourable baronet 
who had just sat down had, in accordance with the rules of courtesy 


270 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


usually adopted in that House, given notice to “my right honourable 
friend, the meipber fcr Whittlestown,” of his intention to put such a 
question. Lord Arden emphasized the words “ my right honourable 
friend.” Koorali remarked this. Her heart leaped to Lord Arden as 
he stood up, his slight figure looking so manly and dignified, his quiet 
manner contrasting so effectively with the briglit Hash in his eyes. 
Lady Betty, too, lelt a thrill of pleasure and relief. Since one of her 
own people stood by Morse surely there could not be anything really 
wrong. And he would deny the charge in a moment. She knew he 
would deny it. She could imagine the glow of indignation which 
would transfigure his impassive face. She might feel proud of her 
husband once more. 

Lord Arden’s phrase was noticed by others, too, who knew that 
Arden had never professed any particular liking for Morse. Sir 
Boderick, half rising, said that he had given the usual notice, and 
Morse assented by spying “ Hear, hear! ” 

Kow then, who is to get up next? Morse? Koorali fully expected 
to see him spring to his feet. He did not move. The leader of the 
Government looked across to him, as if to ask him whether he was not 
about to rise; and, seeing him motionless, got up himself and, amid a 
breathless silence, began to speak. Koorali’s heart beat; she felt as if 
all her nerves were strained out of their places. She sat motionless— 
waiting. The leader of the Government had not much to say. He 
had not risen at once, he said, because he thought the right honour¬ 
able gentleman, the member for Whittlestown, might desire to seize 
the first opportunity of oftering some explanation to the House. As he 
had not yet done so, he, the leader of the Government, could only say 
that Her Majesty’s Ministers had really no information on the subject 
beyond that which was within the reach of every member of the House. 
They had seen—of course with amazement and with incredulity—he 
was bound to say with incredulity—the assertions made and repeated 
so positively in a certain evening newspaper, but he knew nothing of 
the matter, and doubtless the right honourable gentleman opposite 
would be prepared to make a satisfactory statement to the House. 
Bor the present the Government had nothing more to say. So he sat 
down, having blandly made the matter as disagreeable for Morse as he 
well could do. 

A moment’s pause, and then Mr. Fontaine rose, having first glanced 
at Morse, apparently to see whether he was about to get up. Mr. 
Fontaine was perhaps the only man in the House whom members, 
impatient for Morse’s explanation, would just then have consented to 
hear. The House would always listen to Mr. Fontaine, in the convic¬ 
tion that whenever lie spoke, something odd, original, and amusing 
was sure to be uttered. Mr. Fontaine was a man of good family, of 
Huguenot ancestry, and of large private fortune. He might have"had 
a great political career if he were not too indolent for work and too 
careless of fame. He loved to bo amused, and was pleased with any 
manner of excitement and novelty. He went in for Stock FiXchange 


“yi SCENE IN THE HOUSE:^ 


271 


speculations now and then, for the sake of the amusement it gave 
him; to win was interesting, to lose was even more interesting still. 
He was a man of deep convictions, but he delighted in puzzling dul¬ 
lards, and making serious folk believe that he was only a cynic and a 
trifler. He had a weakness for every weak cause; and just now he 
thought Morse in a very dangerous position, and he resolved to come 
to the rescue. It seemed to him likely enough that Morse might have 
dabbled a little in democratic conspiracy. Why not? A man of 
sense and spirit wants to get all he can out of life, and Morse miglit 
naturally enough like to experience the sensation of being a nineteenth- 
century conspirator. Mr. Fontaine thought neither more nor less uf 
him on that account. 

Fontaine began his speech in a slow, measured, drawling tone, for a 
while keeping down almost to a whisper his strong and somewhat harsh 
voice. He protested, he said, against the public time being taken up 
wdth inquiries into what this, that, and the other public man had been 
doing while he was out of office. He did not know whether the right 
honourable gentleman, the member fur Whittlestown, had dallied with 
socialistic conspiracy or not, and he really did not care. If he had 
done so he had only done just what any other man would have done 
in his place, if he thought he had anything to gain by it. Did Her 
Majesty’s jDresent advisers pretend to say that they had not coquetted 
with conspiracy when they were out of office and wanted to get in? 
Was there a really dangerous conspirator in Europe with whom they 
had not packed cards ? There were loud cries of “ Oh, oh! ” and 
“ Order” from the Ministerial benches, especially at this last expression. 
“ Honourable members seem to be much offended at my words. I wish 
they would read their Shakespeare a little—those of the Conservative 
party who can read. (“ Oh, oh! ”) Well, I suppose some of them can 
read. ‘ The phrase is Shakespeare’s, and not ill-applied.’ I am quoting 
again, Mr. Speaker; quoting from I 3 yron this time. Yes, I say they 
packed cards again and again with the vilest conspirators in Euro])e! ” 
Shouts of anger and surprise now came from the Conservative benches 
—sincere surprise, for it was well known that the present Administra¬ 
tion was composed of men who detested all popular movements at 
home and abroad. “Yes; the vilest conspirators in Europe! There 
are conspirators with crowns, as w^ell as conspirators without half a 
crown; there are conspirators against liberty, as well as conspirators 
against despotism; and the conspirators against liberty are the worst 
enemies of the human race. There is not a crowned conspirator on 
the continent of Europe with whom Her Majesty’s present advisers 
have not packed cards; and all the clamour we hear about war is 
simply got up because one of their confederates has got the better of 
them, lie w'as clever and they were dull, and he took them in, and 
now they lose their temper.” Various voices interposed with cries of 
“Question, question.” “I am sticking to the question very closely; 
much more closely than gentlemen on the Treasury bench would lixe. 
T'he question is that the House do now adjourn, and I support the 


^<‘THE RIGHT HONOURABLE:^ 


272 

motion for adjournment on the ground that we are simply wasting 
time, and showing ourselves to be hypocrites by pretending that we 
don’t make every use we can of conspiracy and conspirators whenever 
it suits our political ends. I turn my eyes to the Treasury bench, 
and I see a row of conspirators there. I look to the front bencli of 
Oppositif'n, and I see a rival row of conspirators there, conspirators of 
a different kind. I l ok below the gangway, and I see one particular 
right honourable gentleman singled out to be accused of tampering 
with conspiracy. I say it is affectation, absurdity, political hypocrisy; 
and I hope the House will make up its mind either to adjourn at once 
—sine die, I would suggest—or to get on with its business—if it has 
any business to do.” 

Mr. Fontaine resumed his seat, having done a good deal to deprive 
the whole incident of its melodramatic character, and given, as he 
thought, a chance to Morse of letting the thing drop without a word. 
The House, however, had no intention of being balked of its explanation. 

There were multitudinous cries of “Morse, Morse!”—and Morse, 
having quietly looked round and satisfied himself that no one else wa? 
anxious to interpose, got up and addressed himself to Mr. Speaker, 
Every eye was turned on him; every ear was strained to hear what he 
might say. The stillness as he rose was something oppressive. Goethe 
speaks in a fine line of “ darkness with its myriad eyes; ” has not 
silence sometimes its myriad voices which shrill in the pained ears of 
the listener? 

Morse began in a clear, composed tone, audible all over the House. 
It had not been his intention, he said, to notice anonymous charges 
made in a newspaper. He was not fond of the practice of defending 
himself against anything that might be said of him outside the walls 
of that House. But when a question had been raised in that House 
he felt bound to answer it or, at least, to say why he could not answer 
it. There were two charges made against him. One was that he had 
entered into some plot or organization having for its object to set aside 
the succession at the close of the present reign in England, and to 
establish a republic. On that subject he had to say that he had 
entered into no such plot, and never, until within the last day or two, 
heard that there was any such organization in existence. The House 
broke into one unanimous cheer when Morse had finished his sentence. 
He waited composedly, and then went on: “ I have answered that 
question because 1 think it entitled to an answer. A man might well 
be a patriot and a man of honour, and yet dream of establishing a 
republic in this country.” He reared his head slightly as he spoke, 
and looked round the House. It was said afterwards that there was 
defiance in the look. The applause turned into an almost general 
roar of indignation. Morse waited again. The roar deepened and 
strengthened. 

Lady Betty’s face grew white. She looked with a horror-stricken 
expression at her companion, w'ho pressed her hand in sympathy. 
Lord Germilion, in his corner of the Peers’ Gallery ^.roaned under 



SCENE IN THE HOUSEP 


273 

cover of the roar, and bit his moustache fiercely. If a man is capable 
of owning himself a republican in the House of Commons itself, may 
it not be presumed that he is also ca]\able of abetting a conspiracy ? 
Koorali felt her frame relax under the stress. She shivered with 
nervous excitement. It is a thrilling sight, even for the unconcerned 
stranger, to see a resolute man stand up alone against the passionate 
House of Commons in one of its fierce, ungovernable moods. “Oh, 
why did he say that?” some voices in the House itself as well as in 
the Ladies’ Gallery were heard to ask. “ Why set the House against 
him ? ” “ True and noble heart,” Koorali thought, “ that hides nothing 
for mere policy, and fears nothing so much as untruth.” “They won’t 
listen to another word from him,” was the conviction of many an 
observer. But Morse knew his audience; he knew that the House of 
Commons would listen, because there was still much curiosity as to 
the further answers he might have to make. So he began again after 
a while, and the House, chafing furiously, did not want to lose a word 
of what he might say, and so choked itself and listened. 

“ Therefore, Mr. Speaker,” he went on, “ I have answered the 
question, and have told the House that although I am in principle a 
republican, and believe the republican form of government to be well 
suited for this country ”—here there was another outburst of frenzy 
and noise; Morse waited, and th' n got his chance again—“ I have no 
hesitation in saying that I never belonged to any organization having 
for its object any disturbance of the condition of things which thus 
far seems to be satisfactory to the majority of the English people.” 

There was some laint applause; there was some grumbling of anger; 
there were some ironical cheers, as of men who would say, “indeed, 
and verily, you are considerate of our ancient institutions.” 

“The next accusation agait)st me,” Morse said, “is of a different 
order. I am accused, as I understand it, of having employed foreign 
agents and used the money of an unfriendly foreign State to get up a 
disturbance in this country wdiich should weaken England on the eve 
of a struggle with the foreign State which sent the agents and paid 
the money. Mr. Speaker, I am the representative of an English 
constituency ; as such I am entitled to be considered an English gentle¬ 
man. I should claim that title all the same were I working with my 
own hands for daily wages, as some of the most respected and honoured 
members of this House have done or, perhaps, are still doing; and I 
have nothing whatever to say about the charge which has been brought 
against me.” 

Then Morse paused, and the House drew a deep breath. The House 
was puzzled. Lord Arden and a few other men called a loud and 
emphatic “ Hear, hear! ” But there vvere murmurs of dissatisfaction, 
of surprise; there was a w-ant of understanding in the House as to 
what Morse actually meant. A French assembly would have under¬ 
stood in a moment, and even enemies w'ould have broken out with 
peals of applause. But the intelligence of the House of Commons is a 
little stiff in the trigger. 


274 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


Then suddenly, as though by common consent, the roar broke forth 
again. The House of Commons, it has been said, has more wisdom 
than any one member of it. Very likely; but then the House of 
Commons at times has much less wisdom and far more passion and 
Avrath than any one member of it. Any one member of the House of 
Commons, were he the dullest or the most light-headed, would have 
given himself time enough and commanded his temper sufllciently to 
hear and understand what Morse had to say, provided that one member 
were Morse’s Avhole audience. But a number of fairly reasonable and 
orderly men seems, when brought together and packed into a room, 
to produce a croAvd of unreasonable and disorderly brawlers. So it 
certainly proved on this occasion. The House lost its head. Several 
hundred throats sent out their furious voices in one roar of passion. 
Morse stood quietly and waited. Even when speaking he used but 
little gesture. Now he stood erect and unmoved as a graven image. 
His face, indeed, had something of the statuesque rigidity of bronze. 
Once or twice a slight smile Avas beginning to shoAV itself on the 
Napoleonic features; and then the rigidity returned. His manner had 
in it nothing of defiance, nothing even of conflict; he Avas merely 
independent and self-sustained. The Speaker several times called for 
order; but Canute might as well have bidden the sea to still its noise 
Avhile it AA^as breaking on the beach. I'he pass onate throats could not 
be restrained. Crichton KeiiAvay, in one of the seats in the gallery, 
Avas chuckling with delight; his wife, in the Ladies’ Gallery, Avas 
burning Avith shame. 

At last the storm subsided. The lull Avas permitted because several 
ineffectual attempts on the part of Sir Koderick Fathom to address 
the House shoAved that there AA^as more still to stimulate wrath and 
curiosity. But Sir Boderick, noAV that he Avas alloAved to get a Avord 
in, only half rose from his seat* and taking off his hat asked, “ Do I 
understand the right honourable gentleman to deny the charge ?” To 
do the honest country gentleman justice, he only Avished to give Morse 
a chance of making his denial emphatic and explicit enough for the 
intelligence of the House of Ci)mmons. 

IMorso, of course, had sat doAvn and put on his hat the moment Sir 
lloderick interposed. When Sir Bodenck’s question Avas finished, he 
took off his hat, rose to his feet, and ansAvered in the calmest tones— 

‘•Certainly not. 'J'o a charg<i like that I have no ausAA'er to make. 
If any of my countiymen chooses to believe it of me, he is Avelcome to 
do so; no Avord spoken by me shall ever come betAveen him and his 
belief. I have to thank the House, Mr, S[)eaker, for the courtesy with 
Avhich they have listened to the IVav AA'ords I had to say.” 

The House remained absolutely silent Avhen klorse sat doAvn. It 
Avas utterly i)uzzled. After all, three out of every four members Averc 
commonplace respectable gentlemen upon Avhom any ultra-refinement 
of sentiment Avas as much throAvn aAvay as the chivalry of Don Quixote 
upon the honest landlord of the first hostelry he entered. What most 
men got into their uAinds Avas that Morse had distinctly said he did 


SCENE IN THE HOUSE: 


)iot deny the accusation, the worst accusation, made against him. The 
other accusation he did explicitly deny; and so there was an end of 
that. The House of Commons, to do it justice, always takes a man’s 
word. ]3ut why not deny the other charge as well ? To the ordinary 
Engli.sh country gentleman or the ordinary English hank din ctor, an 
attempt to set aside the succession and establish a republic in England 
would be about as heinous a crime as man could possibly commit. 
The man who would do that would do anything. Why should not 
such a man take foreign gold to hire assassins to stab England in the 
back at her time of uttermost danger? One crime was no worse than 
the other. Why, then, should a man, if he were guiltless of citlur, 
deny the one charge and say he would not deny the other? Almost 
incredible as it may seem, the fact is that the great majority of the 
House of Commons believed that Morse refused to disavow the worst 
of the crimes ascribed to him because he felt that be could not disavow 
it. For the House had simply lost its wits. A day or two after, 
when the truth became clearly known, the dullest squire or city man 
wonden'd how he had failed to understand Moise rightly, and was 
sorry for the failure, and felt ashamed and penitent. But for the 
moment there was a misunderstanding, and the majority of members 
actually roared and howled with fury against ]\Ior.^e, as he rose cmi- 
posedly, and, bt)wing to the S{)eaker, left his ])!ace and walked down 
the floor. A little crowd of members who could not find seats on ihe 
benches of the House stood bvloAv the bar and blocked the way. Morse 
had to pass through them. Many of them glared fiercely at him, and 
there were murmurs and grumbles of wrath. Morse blandly apologized 
for having to crush his way through them. All tlie time the furious 
outcry of the majority of the House was ringing in his ears. Suddenly 
Lord Arden appeared among the little crowd at the bar, and held out 
his hand. 

“My dear Morse, how delighted I am! You said and did just the 
light thing. Deny a blackguard charge like that, made by some 
nameless scoundrel? By Jove, 1 would as soon deny a charge of 
picking old Roderick Fathom’s pocket! I congratulate you. Let the 
confounded fools there howl as much as they like. They’ll be sorry 
enough when they come to their senses to-morr-)w,” 

“ They talk of our House of Representatives—our chamber at 
Washington, 3 ou know”—Mr. Raulton said to the young Envoy, his 
neighbour in the Ambassadors’ Gallery, “but I never saw such 
rowdyism there, nor such a scene as this; nor a whole mob howling 
at one man because he refuses to degrade himself by denying an out¬ 
rageous charge.” 

“That is what your representative government comes to,” the Envoy 
answered blandly. “ In my country, that man would be understood 
and appreciated by his sovereign, and he would not be left to the 
mercy of that howling mob—to use your expression—which I think 
is a very appropriate one.” 

“I am sorry for ]\Ir. Morse,” Raulton said. “From what I know of 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


276 

him I believe in him and I respect him. He ought to go out to the 
States; we should make much of him there.” 

“ I know him well,” the Envoy said. “ He is a patriot and a lover 
of his country. He ought to come out and settle among ^/s. He would 
have a career there; our Emperor knows a great man when he sees 
him.” 

“Ah, but yours is a despotism,” Mr. Paulton observed, wdth a smile. 

“Call it anything you like; only tell me what you call the sort of 
thing that has been going on below us for the last few minutes. But, 
pardon me, you have given it a name. You have called this assembly 
a howling mob. Bien —would you rather have the despotism of a 
calm wise sovereign or that of a howling mob? For me, I prefer the 
despot sovereign to the despot mob.” 

The incident was over. The Speaker called upon the clerk to “pro¬ 
ceed to read the orders of the day; ” in other words, to go on with the 
regular and routine business of the sitting. It was getting towards 
seven o’clock. It was about time to think of going home and dressing 
for dinner. Members hurried into the library, the reading-room, and 
the lobbies, to scratch off hasty letters, in order to catch the last post. 
Strangers got up and lounged away, casting parting looks on the 
emptying house. The ladies began to stream, a vivacious and chatter¬ 
ing crowd, out of their gallery. Koorali and Lady Betty found them¬ 
selves side by side, driven together by the stream. Neither had known 
before that the other was present. They stopped in the lobby for a 
moment, and looked into each other’s eyes and clasped their hands. 
Their hearts were beating loudly; each could hear the pulsation of her 
own. Each woman had tears of emotion sparkling in her eyes. It 
might surely have been supposed by any looker-on that their feelings 
were in absolute sympathy. 

“ Dear, dear Lady Betty ! ” Koorali exclaimed. 

“ Oh, Mrs. Kenway ! Is it not terrible ? You heard-” 

“ Oh yes, I heard.” 

“ IIow they all hate him ! ” 

“ Yes. What cowards some men are! ” 

“ He did not deny it,” Lady Betty said, with a sob. 

“ Deny it! ” KoorMi said with a flush of surprise and anger. “ Of 
course he didn’t deny it. Why should he ? Imagine Mr. Morse—your 
husband—stooping to deny a charge like that, made on the faith of 
some nameless slander! ” 

Lady Betty looked at her with wonder, in which there was a trace 
of resentment. “ You—don’t—believe it? ” she asked. 

“Believe it! ” Koorali exclaimed. “ Oh, my God! ” 

The exclamation was forced from her by the intensity, the agony 
of her feelings. The agony was not because of the public attack made 
upon Morse, or because of any trouble that might come upon his 
parliamentary career. But the thought that his wife could even for a 
moment admit in her mind the possibility of such a charge being true, 
true of such a man, true of her own husband, was terrible to Koorali. 


SCENE IN THE HOUSE: 


277 


hy? it might well break even his brave and strong heart if he were 
to come to know it. 

“ Oh, Lady Betty,” she whispered, in fervent appeal, if you have 
allowed such an idea into your mind, pray, pray don’t ever let Mm, 
know of it.” 

She spoke in low agitated tones. At that moment it was impossible 
to command look or voice. She had caught Lady Betty’s hand in 
hers, and the two women stood close together. Suddenly Koorali felt 
the hand wrenched from her own. Lady Betty uttered a little inarticu¬ 
late cry. 

“ Oh, but—you—from you,” she began, and stopped. She could 
not put into words the passion, the reproach, the jealousy, the wounded 
])ride which swept over her like a rushing flood. Her vague dread had 
become a crushing reality. She knew with the most intense conviction 
that Koorali loved Morse. Deep in her heart there had lain for some 
time the fear that Morse loved Koonili. Her slow imagination ran 
riot now. In this hour of defeat and disgrace a still worse humiliation 
was to befall her. She turned her eyes upon the woman preferred to 
her with one quick scathing flash of indignation. There was in the 
look more of wrath than of pain. She said not a word. 'I’hey were 
parted. 

KoorMi hurried away. She had not taken in the full meaning of 
that strange look. She was thinking of nothing at first but of the 
appalling fact that Lady Betty evidently believed there was some 
foundation for the charge against Morse. “ She can’t love him ; she is 
not capable of loving him,” Koorkli sa^d to herself in generous anger. 
“ He has no one—no one—no one to love him. His own wife turns 
against him.” If at this moment another thought should force itself 
inm Koorali’s mind; if for an instant she should allow her heart to say 
to her, “ Oh ! if you were his wife, how you would have loved him, 
and trusted him, and clung to him, and cleaved to him at a time like 
this!” is there any moralist so stern as to find much fault with the 
fond and faithful Australian woman, gifted with such an unused wealth 
of affection, tried just then by such strong temptation V 

At the entrance in the courtyard. Lady Betty, when she came down 
all flushed and agitated, found herself seized by her father, lie was 
fearfully excited. 

“Come home with me, Betty,” he said in shrill tones. “Get into 
my carriage. Come to your father’s house, my child. You never could 
live with that man again. A daughter of mine can’t stay under the 
same roof with a seditious anarchist and an avowed enemy to his 
sovereign and his country ! ” 

Lady Betty cast a wild glance at him and then at the place she had 
left. She was trembling with conflicting emotions. In that backward 
glance there seemed something of the wife’s impulse to face the worst 
by her husband’s side. So Lord Germilion interpreted it. His grasp 
on her hand tightened. At that instant Lady Betty a:ain saw Koorali 
in the thinning crowd—Koorali, whose eyes met hers with that high 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE* 


278 

steadfast look Avliich seemed to Lady Betty, in this moment of torture 
and humiliation, the look of a triumphant rival. 

“ What shall I do? What can I do?” she asked in a passionate 
whisper. “He doe> not love me any more. It is not for my opinion 
that he cares. Everything is changed between us.” 

“ How could it be otherwise ? You—my daughter—your instincts 
—your training, did not lit you to he the wife of such a man as he.” 

Lord Germiiion was intensely moved. The wounded pride, the 
anger against Morse, the deep tenderness for her which showed in his 
face were in a strange contradict try way a stimulant and a comfort to 
Lady Betty. Here she was understood and prized. She was justified 
in her own sight. Here was a haven, a strong arm of support. Only 
the stress of great emotion could have made her confess, even to her 
father, that she had lost her husband’s love. But now it seemed to 
her that thc'e two—father and daughter, of the same race and order, 
stricken in like manner—must needs cling to and uphold each other. 
She had always been more or less pliable in his hands. She had always 
followed his advice and leaned on his judgment. She suffered him to 
lead her to his carriage—her own was in waitimr, but Lord Germilion 
waved the footman away. There was no time for argument, nor was 
Lady Petty capable of it. Her mind was in too greiit a tumult. She 
had, indeed, a frenzied longmg that ^Morse should know at once to 
what he had brought himself and her. He should see that the people 
she bclon.evl to would not allow her to be outraged, but would jmotect 
their own. She got into the carriage. There was a little delay. 
Lord Germilion gave the order to his house—not to hers. Lady Betty 
leaned back and burst into a flood of tears. He tenderly pressed her 
hands. 

“ Your place is with me,” he said. “ Your husband must clear 
himself of this shameful accusation and show that he has luj part in 
treason and conspiracy before he ventures to claim his wife from her 
father.” 

Just then Lord Arden came to the carriage window. He had hurried 
round to the entrance of the Ladies’ Gallery to speak to Lady Betty 
and Koorali. He had seen the agitation of Lady Betty, and he had 
heard some of the words spoken by Lord Germilion. He knew that 
the movement was ciitical, and that if Lady Betty left her husband 
now she might all her life regret the step, lie pressetl forward. 

“Lady Petty,” he exclaimed, “I want to speak to you. 1 shall find 
you at home later V ” 

“No,” Lord Germilion interrupted harshly. “ Lady Betty is goin" 
to my house. She will not return to her own yet—not t.ll all this 
matter is cleared—if it can be clean'd. ]\Iy daughter is not a re])ublican. 
She will not have any dealings with anarchists who plot against their 
sovereign and their country.” 

Arden burst into an angry laugh. “ Good heavens ! ” he exclaimed. 
“Y^ou don’t believe that? Oh, Lady Betty,” he cried imploringly, 
“surel}^ surely-” 



CRICHTON^S REVENGE. 


279 

But his voice was lost. The horses made a movement forward as 
the block gave way, and Lord Germilion, annoyed at the remonstrance 
and anxious to spare his daughter, gave the order to drive on. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

CHICIITOX’S REVENGE. 

At the door of the Ladies’ Gallery Koorali found Kenway waiting for 
her. There was a glitter in his eyes which it hurt her to see. °His 
face was flushed, fl’here was something strange and inexpressibly 
distasteful to her in his look and manner. As he came near her and 
drew her rather roughly out of the crowd towards the carriage, she 
noticed about him a sickly smell of spirits—which, indeed, she had 
remarked more than once of late. Kenway, fairly abstemious when 
the world was going well with him, occasionally allowed his coarser 
tendencies to get the better of him when he was troubled and, as he 
expressed it, “down on bis luck.” Just now, however, he seemed in 
exultation. He said nothing until they were in the brougham, driving 
homeward. 

“ Well, there has been a jolly row downstairs,” was his first remark. 

Koorali was too much taken up with her own emotions to notice the 
form of his comment. She felt so strongly that words seemed forced 
from her ; she had to speak even to him. 

“Crichton,” she said in a kind of awe-stricken tone, “do you know 
—would you ever imagine it?—I think Lady Betty Morse believes 
that shocking calumny against her husband. Yes; I am afraid she 
does. She almost said so! ” 

“ Does she, really ? By Jove, I shouldn’t have expected that I I 
am devilish glad to hear it. How like a man’s wife—to believe any¬ 
thing against her husband! I am so glad. Well, Koorali, I think 
I have had my turn out of him—and out of you too, old girl! I have 
made your friend Morse sit up a bit. I told you I would have my 
I evenge; and 1 have had it! He’ll never get over this. He has had 
his day; this is my day.” 

Koorali turned cold all over. She felt her flesh creep. She stared 
at her chuckling husband. 

“ Your day—your revenge ? Crichton! what do you mean ? ” 

“ I mean what I say. 1 have had my revenge.” 

Koorali did not answer him or say another word Avhile they were 
driving home. She remained in silence, not even looking at him. 
She had a perception somehow that his eyes were fixed on her, and 
that he was enjoying what he conceived to be a triumph over her. 
She gazed steadfastly out of the carriage window as they were driven 
through the lighted streets. A light shower of snow had begun to fall, 
and tiie air was piercingly cold. It was the first snow of the 'winter— 
the first snow Koorali had ever seen; but there was very little of it 


“7y/£' RIGHT HONOURABLE.^ 


280 

yet. Let her live as long as she may she will never forget that short 
drive home; nor the look of their house as they came to it; nor 
Ken way’s manner of formal and put-on politeness as he offered to help 
her out of the carriage. She ran upstairs swiltly before him. They 
were engaged to dine out this evening; and it was getting late already. 
She went into the sitting-room. 

“ About time to dress, Koorali,” Crichton said, pausing at the door 
of the room. “ Look at the clock.” 

His strange manner, so composed and yet so malignant, gave her a 
miserable feeling of dread and absolute insecurity. And yet she had 
the instinct of battle; she seemed to know that the crisis of her fate 
had come, and that after this there could be no half-measures. She had 
an impulse to denounce him as traitor and liar. But the very strength 
of her suspicion horrified her. She clung to the last shred of faith. 

“ Crichton,” she said, turning to him, “ Crichton—my husband ”— 
she seemed to use these words for her own sake, to herself, to remind 
her that after all he was her husband, and was entitled to at least a 
chance of clearing himself in her mind—“ is there any real meaning in 
what you said? Have you anything to do with this attack on Mr. 
Morse? Do you know anything about it? Oh, you don’t; I am 
sure you don’t! Tell me I ” 

He came into the room as she spoke, and closed the door behind 
him. A bright fire was burning on the hearth. He went towards it, 
and stood facing her. 

“ Of course I know all about it. The whole thing is my doing. I 
don’t mind your knowing it; not one bit. I would rather you did 
know it; and at once. It will teach you, KoorMi, that I am a man of 
my word; it will let you know that I am not a person to be played 
with or fooled. I mean what I say, and when I threaten, I strike. 
That’s about it.” 

“ But I don’t understand,” Koorali said, with a stony calmness 
that might have surprised herself. “ What have you to do with it ? 
What have you done? Please, Crichton, tell me in plain words. I 
am very stupid—you have often said so—I can’t guess things or explain 
mysterious hints. What have you done?” 

“ I’ll make it plain enough,” he answered with a laugh. “ It was I 
who supplied the information to the Piccadilly Gazette; it was I who 
wrote the letters; it was I who persuaded the editor to back them up. 
Alone I did it, Koorali. That was my revenge!” 

Revenge 1 ” she cried. “ For what ? Crichton, do you mean that 
it was you who made this charge against Mr. Morse; against our bene¬ 
factor ; against our one only friend? ” 

“ Benefactor be hanged 1 He hasn’t been much of a benefactor to 
me. He kept me hanging on in expectation until I am pretty well 
ruined; and then he throws up the whole thing, and forces on me this 
Farnesia appointment, which I hate. I don’t know how far he has 
been a benefactor to you. You know your own affairs best, I suppose. 
1 speak for myself.” 


CRICHTON^S REVENGE. 281 

“ It was you who got up this charge against Mr. Morse? ” she asked 
again. 

“ hy, certainly. Haven’t I told you that it was my revenge ? It 
would never have been heard of but for me. I have been pipe-laying, 
as the Americans say, for it this long time. I began keeping an eye 
on your friend’s movements long ago, thinking it might be well to find 
out something—to have something in readiness. The very first night 
that w'e dined at his house, I fulloAved your immaculate hero to a 
meeting of socialists and foreign spies. I waited outside the house, 
and saw him walk away. I spotted him in the company of those 
very men who provoked the riots.” 

“ Do you believe the story—yourself?” 

“Why not? Why shouldn’t it be true? You heard what he said. 
You didn’t hear him deny it, did you ? ” 

“ If some one were to accuse you of forging a cheque or swindling, 
would you deny it, Crichton ? ” 

“ Of course I should. All the more loudly and readily, I dare say, 
- if the charge happened to be true.” 

“ Well, I asked you a question, Crichton. Do you believe the 
story ? ” 

“That doesn’t matter. The House of Commons believed it; the 
country believes it.” 

“ Again, Crichton ”—and she looked him fixedly in the face, the 
pupils of her eyes enlarging and contracting wuth intense emotion— 
“do you believe it—yourself?” 

“ Well, if you put it that way, I don’t think I do. But what about 
that? Any stick will do, you know, to Dat a dog.” 

“ You knoiu it isn’t true.” 

“ Yes ; I suppose so. I fancy it isn’t true. But it will smash him 
for the moment.” 

“ For the moment, perhaps. But do you suppose there will not be 
a revulsion ? Do you suppose that the country will not soon do him 
justice ? Your revenge will not be a very lasting one, Crichton. But 
no matter ”—she moved back a step or two, and let her arms fall with 
a gesture of passionate disgust as if she would shake herself free of 
defilement—“ you have done a thing which has settled the question 
for ever between you and me.” 

“ W'hat do you mean?” he asked savagely, and he came close to 
her, so close that she could again notice the fumes of brandy in his 
breath. He had been drinking at intervals all day—not enough to 
cloud his brain, but enough to make him no longer master of himself. 
'J'here was a fiery gleam in his eyes, and his voice was rough and 
harsh. 

“ You have committed a crime as great almost as any that a man 
could commit. I had rather hear you confess you had done a murder. 
You—an English gentleman! ” she said, in cold measured tones which 
fell like drops of ice-water. “ You—followed a man whose guest you 
had been, who had none but kindly feelings to you and yours, and 
19 


282 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


?pied upon his secrets, meaning to turn them as a weapon against him. 
And then you met him day after day, and took his hand, and pre¬ 
tended to be his friend; and would have set your wife to buy favours 
from him! ” 

All the time that she was speaking, her eyes, clear, dilated, and full 
of unutterable contempt, met his straight. A spirit of defiance, of 
scorn, of hatred, had risen within her and taken possession of her soul. 
She was completely adrift from her moorings. She cared not what 
might happen to her. Her words goaded him to fury. 

“ By God! ” he exclaimed, ‘‘ I believed you an honest woman till 
now, and now I know that you are Sandham M('»rse’s mistress.” 

Koorali shrank back, putting up her hand with a quick gesture, as 
if she had been stabbed. Her face was white as death, her very lips 
blanched. 

“ Deny it,” Crichton exclaimed, with a laugh which seemed to her 
like that of a fiend or a madman, “you cannot.” 

In an instant she recovered herself, and faced him again, her small 
form reared, her head erect, and her eyes wide and glistening, not 
blenching before his. She let her arms fall again, and they hung 
straight at her sides. Something in her attitude and expression, 
reminded him of Morse’s look when he silently faced his accusers in 
the House. 

“ I see,” he said, with another coarse laugh, “ 3 mu take pattern from 
your lover.” 

“ I do,” she ans-wered steadily, not lowering her gaze. “ I will not 
deny such a charge.” 

Crichton sprang forward and seized her arms. He uttered a low, 
deep oath. 

“If you look at me like that,” he s;iid, “I’ll turn you into the 
street.” 

At that moment Koorhli was hardly conscious of Crichton’s gras]>, 
or of any strong feeling on her own part. She had no vivid conception 
of the situation. Sensation w’as numbed, and for the time she had 
lost her reasoning firculty. Even her maternal instinct was in ahcyance. 
She was at the white heat of emotion. She seemed to know only that 
some influence stronger than her own will was framing the words in 
her mouth, and forcing her to utter all that had been pent up dui'ing 
years of wretchedness and self-repression. 

“ Yes,” she said, “ put me out of your house. Strike me, if you 
j)lease. I am ftot afraid of you, now that 1 know what you are—a 
coward, a spy, and a liar.” 

For a few seconds there was a breathless pause, like that which in 
an encounter with a beast of prey may precede the fatal s[)ring. Koo- 
raii felt the grasp on her arms tighten as if they were in a vice. She 
thought they were being broken. Her eyes clung with a horrible fas¬ 
cination to his lace. Everything swam before her. She saw nothing 
but those fierce reddened eyes gleaming with rage and hate. She 
thought for an instant that he would kill her. 


CRICHTOIS/^S REVENGE, 283 

Suddenly the hold relaxed completely. Her arms fell nerveless. 
(-richton moved back a step or two. She staggered. A sensation of 
giddiness and deadly sickness came over her. She did not know 
whether she had fainted or not. Everything was dark for a moment. 
\V hen she became conscious again she w'as leaning against the grand 
piano; and there flashed through her memory an odd, inconsequent 
vision of Morse as he had leaned over the instrument and had watched 
her while she put together the bulrushes and daisies. And then ^he 
seemed to hear the breeze rustling the reeds on the bank of the river 
Lynde; and with a swift sharp pang she felt the conviction that she 
would never again see the sunset—the old gods transformed into even¬ 
ing clouds, as Morse once told her Heine had called them—floating 
across the meadows at the Grey Manor. 

Presently she knew that Crichton was speaking. He was standing 
now away from her, and almost as quiet as herself. He looked no 
longer violent, but only hard and sinister and resolute. His self-con- 
quec^t gave him a sort of dignity that deepened in Koorali’s mind the 
sense of irrevocableness. There had been said and done that which 
could never be unsaid and undone. His very recognition of this fact, 
which she saw in his face, lifted him in her estimation to a higher 
level. He seemed something more than a cowardly cur. 

“You’re a woman,” he said, “and I can’t strike you. I can’t put 
you out of my house into the night. But I’ll not sleep under the 
same roof with you again.” 

It had come—the release! For the moment, it was as if there had 
been an inrush of pure air and glorious sunlight—and then black 
terror like the falling of the stone upon the mouth of a tomb. She 
straightened herself a little and bent forward with x^arted lips. The 
anxious questioning in her gaze sharpened to agony. 

“ I may go,” she said; then paused. “ And the children ?” 

“ You may go—where you please. To Morse, or to your father. 
The children will stay with me. I do not know yet what I shall do 
with them. Probably send them both to a strict school, where they 
will be well brought up.” 

“ You cannot i)Ut me out of your home,” cried KoorMi. “ You can¬ 
not part me from my children. The law would defend me.” 

“ The law does not forbid a father to send his boys to school,” replied 
Crichton coldly. “The law, I believe, may, under certain conditions, 
compel what is called a restitution of conjugal rights. You have that 
alternative.” 

Koorkli uttered one low cry and was silent. She had the impulse <>{ 
a mother whose actions have unjustly condemned her children to death, 
and who will save them at any cost. Her resolution was taken. 

“ I am willing to come to any reasonable arrangement about money,” 
said Crichton. “ In the meantime, you will require some, whatever 
your plans may be. You will find here rather more than is needed 
for your passage to Australia.” He took out a pocket-book as he 
spoke, and opening it, divided a bundle of bank-notes, half of which 


“77/^ RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


284 

he handed to her. “ It’s only right,” he added, with that horrible 
laugh, “ that you should have your share of the plunder. This is the 
price which the Ficcadilly Gazette gave for—my information.” 

Courage flamed in her. She came forward and took the bundle from 
his hand. She moved back a little, then before his eyes deliberately 
tore the notes across, then across again, and flung the pieces on the 
floor. 

He made a gesture as if he would have fell upon her and throttled 
her there and then; but again by a violent effort he restrained him¬ 
self, and abruptly turning he went out of the room, leaving her stand¬ 
ing there with the shreds of the bank-notes scattered round her. 

She remained in a dazed way, incoherently thinking. Exactly at 
eight o’clock she heard Kenway leave the house to go to his dinner¬ 
party. She could picture him to herself entering the drawing-room of 
the house where he was to dine, advancing all smiles and grace to his 
hostess, and making some sweet apologetic explanation of dearest Koo- 
rMi’s absence, and conveying the expression of her regrets, and regards, 
and loves, and so forth. Kooruli could not help letting her thoughts 
wander in this idle way and painting for herself this unimportant 
little picture. When he was gone, she dragged herself upstairs, still 
physically weak, and too bewildered quite to realize what had 
happened. Her boys’ voices in the nursery seemed to call her there. 
They were amusing themselves alone. Lance was tinkering up a 
battered steam-engine, and Miles was spell ng out a nursery rhyme 
from one of his toy-books— 

“ A carrion crow sat on an oak, 

Derry, den'y, derry, decco ; 

A cari'ion crow sat on an oak, 

Watching a tailor shaping his cloak. 

Heigh ho t the carrion crow. Derry, derry, dei'ry, deccol 

KoorMi stood for a minute in the doorway and looked at her children. 
All the tragedy of the situation rushed over her in strange contrast 
with this homely little scene. An exclamation like a groan broke from 
her. The boys looked up and saw her standing there, still in her street 
dress. 

“Mother,” said Lance, “aren’t you going to the party with 
father?” 

“No,” she answered. “I’m going to stay—with my children.” 

Something in her voice startled both the boys. Lance put down his 
steam-engine, and Miles crept up to her, his book in his hand. 

“ Mayn’t we come down, then, mother, to the drawing-room ? No 
one will come to undress us for ever so long yet.” 

“We will stay here,” said Koorali. Suddenly she began to see, 
from their wondering faces, that her look and tone were giving them 
the impression that something was amiss. She roused herself to a 
kind of hysterical gaiety and interest in their amusements. First, 
Lance would have her play at lotto with them, and then Miles bef^^ed 
for one of Grimm’s fairy tales. 


CRICHTONS REVENGE. 285 

KoorMi went tiirougli tlie game, and then read, read on mechani¬ 
cally. And all the time her despairing resolve was becoming fixed into 
an unalterable purpose. She did not know whether Crichton had 
really meant what he said, and had gone from the house not intending 
to return till she had left it; but she knew that she meant to take 
away her children, and to hold them till they were actually wrested 
from her. 

She asked, putting down the b<X)k, “ Lance, should you like to go 
back to Australia?” 

“ Oh, jolly I ” cried Lance. “ It’s ever so much better than Farnesia, 
I am sure. I say, mother, father showed me some snakes that had 
come from Farnesia in the Zoo—weenie things, not much bigger than 
slow-worms. I say, do you know that- if you cut a slow-worm in 
pieces, it’ll join together again ? ” 

“If you put one bit in Asia and one in Africa, it wouldn’t join,” 
said Miles. 

“ Oh, bother ! ” exclaimed Lance. 

Just then their nurse, who was KoorMi’s maid as well, came in, 
full of cojicern because her mistress had not gone to dress. The 
woman guessed that there had been a quarrel. It was not the first 
time that Koorkli had taken refuge in the nursery after an unpleasant 
scene with her husband. 

“Oh, ma’am!” she exclaimed, “I was afraid you mightn’t be well. 
Shall you dress later ? ” 

“ 1 am not going out this evening,” answered KoorMi, commanding 
her face and voice. “ I shan’t want you, Amelia.” 

“ If you please, ma’am, cook did not understand that you would be 
at home, and would like to know if you will require dinner.” 

“No,” answered Koorali, “I’m not feeling very well, Amcli;i. I 
couldn’t eat now.” 

“ You’re tired, ma’am, and with one of your headaches, I expect. 
Won’t you let me run down for a glass of wine and a biscuit. You do 
look so pale,” the maid urged. She was really attached to her mistress, 
and distressed at her appearance. 

She went away without waiting for permission. Koorali drank the 
wine, and ate the food that was brought her. They did her good and 
revived her faculties. She let Amelia take off her out-of-door things, 
and then she kissed her children and went downstairs again. She hacl 
a great deal to think of and to settle. She could think better now. 
The drawing-room was just as she had left it, and the torn notes lay 
still on the floor. She wondered if it was snowing still. She went to 
the window, and, drawing aside the curtain, looked out into the night. 
Great flakes like white feathers were falling thickly and noiselessly. 
The ground was quite white, and so were the roofs and projections of 
the houses opposite. The trees in a square at the end of the street 
looked like huge branches of white coral. She had seen such coral 
growing beneath the ocean away near the Great Barrier Beef. How 
strange it was! How beautiful! It awed her, and br-rnght the tears 


286 


«r//^ RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


rushing to her eyes. She, who was born in an almost tropical region, 
had never beheld such a scenes The strangeness, whiteness, and 
weirdness of it seemed in keeping with the crisis in her own life. 

The sound of traffic in the streets was muffled, but she could hear 
the shrill shouting of the newspaper boys, and gathered word by word 
the shrieked-out announcement, “ Great scene in the House of 
Commons! Serious charge against Mr. Sandham ]\torse.” 

She turned hastily from the window, and leaned against the 
chimney-piece, her head upon her hand, till long after the cry had 
died away, thinking—thinking. She was indeed perplexed in the 
extreme. Yet she had got up a sort of marble composure. Her 
purpose was fixed—was adamant. Nothing on earth should induce 
her to live with Crichton Kenway as his wife any more; and she 
would not give up her boys. She was not thinking of giving them 
up; she was only thinking of how they were to be got away. It 
came into her mind that Kenway could be easily induced to take 
what he had himself once called, “ a financial view of the situation ; ” 
and that he could be bought off; that he would let her take her 
children if she could give him money for them. But to whom could 
she turn? She had no money. Her cheeks flamed at the mere idea 
of turning to Morse. Oh, how gladly he would do it, she knew, if she 
could only turn to him—and she could not. Any man on earth 
rather than him—after what Crichton had said; and after Crichton’s 
crime against him. The clock struck nine. 

She heard the bell at the street-door ring. Who could be coming at 
that hour ? 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

“no way but this!” 

“Mr. Morse.” 

Koor^li stood motionless with the shock of surprise. He of all men 
was the last Avhom she could have expected to see. She looked at him 
with a sort of terror in her eyes. Her greeting was one of absolute 
silence. Nor, for a moment, did he speak. The door closed again. 
He came straight to where she stood, but he did not hold out his 
hand. 

“ Koorali! ” He had never called her by her name since the day, 
too well remembered, on the terrace at the Priory-on-the-Water. 
“KoorMi, are you shocked at my coming so late? I felt that I must 
come; 1 have news to tell you. But stop! 1 see by your face that 

you have news to tell me; I see it in your eyes, and in these tell-tale 
half-circles round them. Something bad has happened to you too. 
Well, I will first have your story, and then you shall have mine. May 
I sit down ? ” 

He drew a chair and sat down. His forced composure, his manner 


''NO WAY BUT 


2S7 

of assumed levity, were ominous and terrible to her. Ilis face was 
kept rigid as a mask; but his eyes spoke of some grim event which he 
was compelling himself to endure. 

" Tell me first,” KoorMi said tremulously. 

“No; I must first hear what you have to tell me. Go on. Some¬ 
thing has happened. What is it?” There was a touch of almost 
tragic imperiousness about him which mastered her. It was bewilder¬ 
ing, tempting, and yet inexpressibly sweet to see him so near, with his 
eyes fixed upon her, and something in them which had never been 
there before. “ Sit down,” he said; “ we have a great deal to talk 
about—you and I.” She moved from where she had been standing by 
the mantel-piece, and sat down on a low sort of ottoman in front of 
the nearly burnt out fire. As she did so, her dress brushed the little 
sheaf of crisp paper on the carpet. She saw his eyes attracted to it by 
the rustle, and stooping, suddenly gathered up the torn notes, and with 
a passionate gesture flung them upon the coals. “ Those are bank¬ 
notes,” he said, still in that abrupt way. “ Why do you want to burn 
them?” 

“ Because they are the price ”—she began impetuously, with 
heightening colour, and then stopped, drawittg herself together with a 
little shiver, while a curtain seemed to fall over her flashing eyes and 
moved features—“ because my husband gave them to me,” she said in 
a tone of repressed bitterness. 

At that instant the pieces of paper flamed up. The glow striking 
her face or the momentary change in its expression made him start 
forw'ard and look at her searchingly. 

“ You have been ill,” he exclaimed. “ Oh, how altered you are! ” 

He had not seen her, except upon that dusky afternoon in the Park, 
since they had parted so conventionally at the Priory-on-the-Water. 
As she sat there in her black dress, it seemed to him that her form 
was shrunken; that her cheeks were more wasted than he had fancied 
on first entering; and that the circles round her eyes were larger and 
hollower. 

“ Pve not been ill,” she said, in a manner of the deepest dejection; 
and then, looking up at him with a quick, most pathetic glance, she 
added, “ Pve only been—unhappy.” 

He made a sound like a groan. “Unhappy! These months! I 
knew it. And I couldn’t do anything. No matter now. Tell me 
what that means,” and he pointed to the blackened paper. “ You have 
quarrelled with your husband ? ” 

“We have quarrelled,” Koorali answered quietly, “He is sending 
me away from him—for ever. I shall never live with him again.” 

A melancholy smile passed for half an instant across Morse’s face, 
and then \vas gone. He was thinking, “Is it much of a banishment 
for such a woman to be sent from such a man?” The smile gave 
place to a peculiar expression. He bent towards her. “Then, 
Koorali,” he said, in a strange, low voice, “ you are free to go where 
you will.” 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


288 ' 

No covert meaning in his words struck her. 

“My children,” she went on simply, “my little boys. He says 1 
must not take them; hut I will take them.” 

“ Do you really mean that your husband is turning you out of his 
house? ” Morse asked fiercely. 

“ I do. He has turned me out of his house ; he has told me that I 
must go; that I must be gone before he returns; that he will not 
come under one roof with me ever again. See ”—she made a gesture 
towards the fire—“ there is the money which he gave me, that I might 
go away.” 

“Where do you propose to go to, Koorali ? ” Morse leaned 
forward, his chin buried in his hands, his elbows on his knees, and he 
gazed fixedly, anxiously, into her face. 

“ I am going back to my father—in South Britain. I have nowhere 
else to go to. 1 must go. I will find a way. I will take my little 
boys—nothing shall prevent me from doing that—I will do that I ” 

“ Yes,” said Morse, “ wherever you go your children shall go with 
you.” 

“ Thank you; oh, thank you! ” Koorali exclaimed fervently, as if 
he had given her some great gift. He had, at least, approved of her 
resolve, “//e will be glad in the end,” she said. “ He is going out to 
his new government, and he will feel all the happier for being free from 
us. He has never cared for us. He only said—what he did—about 
the children to frighten and torture me.” 

“ Tell me—was the quarrel very serious ? ” 

“ AVe can never come together again—never, never ! It’s all ended- 

I’d rather die than go on. I-” she faltered from old instinct of 

reserve, then spoke aeain recklessly—“ I wanted it to end. I tried for 
a long time to bear all and say nothing; but there came a time when 
I could bear no more. He made life very bitter to me.” 

“ I know it. I know it, Koorkli.” 

“ To-night there was said what can never be forgotten as long as we 
two live. I am going away to-morrow—I and my children. I will 
hide them from him till we are out of England, and then—then, if he 
wants them, he must drag them from me. He won’t do that. It 
would not be worth while.” 

There was silence for a moment. Then Morse asked— 

“ Can you tell what it was about?” 

She only shook her head, and ngain there was a moment’s silence, 
and then IMorse said— 

“ If I can guess, will you tell me then; will you say ‘ yes ’ or ‘ no ’ ? 
Was the quarrel—about me?” 

Koorali looked at him in a wild, beseeching way. The faint flush 
which had come over her face was quite gone now; she was deadly 
pale. The steadfastness of his gaze seemed to compel a truthful 
reply. 

“ Yes.” She spoke in a mere whis^x^r the one word. Then she rose 
and went to the chimney-piece, and took up one of the cards that were 



IVAV Birr 289 

lying there, and turned it over, and read and re-read its inscription, all 
unconsious of what she was doing. 

“ He accused you-” 

Without looking round, without putting down the card she appeared 
to he studying, Koorali answered, “ He did.” 

“My God!” Morse said, with a groan. The purest, truest, most 
loyal woman he bad ever known ; and she had to bear all this ! This 
was her reward! 

“He doesn’t believe it,” Morse exclaimed; “he knows what a liar 
and slanderer he is! ” 

“ He does not believe it,” Koorali said simpi3\ “ Oh no; he knows 
it is not true. He only wants to drive me I'rom him. Do not think 
altogether hardly of him,” she added, impelkd by an instinct of justice. 
“ I angered him. I—I—lost ipyself.” 

Morse gave a bitter little laugh. “ There is something more, 
Koorali, I am sure. Something that I do not know,” he said with 
sudden energy. 

“ There is,” Koorali answered. Her face seemed to grow still paler. 

“And am I not to know it?” 

“ Ko; not through me. Never, I hope, through any one. It wouM 
not he right for me to tell you; you will not ask me ? ” She turned 
round to him now with beseeching eyes. 

“ Still I think I ought to ask you-” 

“ No, no. Oh, pray don’t press me. I could not tell you. It was 
something told to me which I ought never to tell again. It did not 

really concern me; e.xcept that- No. I must be silent. You will 

not let me say what I should hate myself for saying?” 

Wronged though she was, Koor5,li shrank, as from something dis¬ 
honourable, at the thought of letting Morse know of her husband’s 
unparalleled treachery and ingratitude towards him. 

“Well,” Morse said, drawing a deep breath, “if it does not concern 
you, Koorali, it does not concern me; I shall not ask you any more 
about it.” His impression was that Koorkli had found out some 
wrong-doing of her husband, something of the too-familiar kind, and 
that she thought she ought not to tell of it, and he felt that she was 
right. “Come, you have told me your story. Your husband has left 
you.” 

“He has told me I am to leave him for ever.” 

“ Yes. Now, don’t you want to hear my story ? ” He got up as he 
spoke, and stood grim and Napoleonic before her. 

“ Yes,” Koorali said, taking new fright at the strange expression on 
his face. 

“ Well, it is your own over again—in a different way. My wife has 
left me.” 

“Oh no!” Koorali exclaimed. “Lady Betty left you? It can’t 
be!” 

“ She has left me, Koorkli; she has gone back to her father’s house. 
She declares she will never come under my roof again—and she is right 


^•'THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


290 

in that,” he added grimly. “ She believes that I was really the leader 
' of a plot to stab England in the back with a foreign dagger ; by 
assassins hired with foreign money.” 

Koorali broke into a cry of horror and shame. “ She believes that— 
of you—your own wife? She says so? She herself; her very scdf?” 

“ She has written it down here; with her own hand. See—you may 
read Iut letter. I found it waiting to welcome me when I reached 
home—I mean the house that was my home.” lie drew out a 
crumpled sheet, and held it to her. She did not move her hands to 
take it. With a bitter laugh he tossed it into the tire. “You teach 
me a lesson in loyalty,” he said. “ Well, it’s late for that now. 
Yes;” he broke out wildly, “ she believed it! And Arden—the 3 mung 
man I never much liked, and he didn’t like me, 1 know—he didn’t 
believe it for one second ! He came out of Ids way this evening to 
speak to me and shake hands with me and tell me I had said just the 
right thing! And his father, Lord Forrest—that cold, stately old 
man, who would not diverge one inch from the most scrupulous prin¬ 
ciple to save the empire—he came to me, and held out his hand and 
he told me I had spoken like a man of honour and a gentleman—and 
that means so much with him. He did. He was hardly ever in the 
House of Commons before, and he came to hear me; and he approved 
of what I had said and done; and said he would have done just the 
same himself! And you—well, of course, I need not speak of you— 
you couldn’t believe such a tale of me.” 

He had moved in an excited way while he had been speaking, and 
now he stood by the piano, and leaned over it in the attitude she 
1 emembered so well. 

“ Oh no,” she said quietly. “ No matter who believed it, I couldn’t 
believe it; I never thought about it at all—except that you were 
right in not condescending to deny it. I was almost afraid at first 
that you Avere going to give it a serious denial; but, of course, I might 
have known that you would do just what was right.” She remem¬ 
bered then Lady Betty’s strange looks and strange words as they 
were leaving the Ladies’ Gfallery. Her heart was swelling with gener¬ 
ous anger. 

“Well, I have said enough about that,” Morse declared; and he 
made a gesture with his hand as if he were waving it away for ever. 
He left the piano now, and went over to the chimney-piece and stood 
by KootAii. “I didn’t quite know Avhile 1 was coming here, Koorkli, 
what I was coming for. I suppose I followed my star, as you said that 
Australian morning, long ago—don’t you remember ? Yes; I must 
have been following my star! Now it shines on me quite clearly, and 
it shows me the way. When I came here I did npt know that you were 
without a husband, as I am without a wife. Have we not borne 
enough? Have we not kept from each other long enough? Koorkli, 
let us not stand apart any more.” 

His manner was not in the least like that of a wild lover in a melo¬ 
drama. He was standing composedly on the hearthrug, and his voice 


“iVC? IVAV BUT THIS/» 


291 

was low-toned and qui_et; bis whole bearing that of restraint and 
reserve. Sbe looked up in wonder to bis face. Did she really under¬ 
stand what be meant ? 

“ Come to me, Koorali,” be said; “ the fates have thrown us to¬ 
gether. Is it not so ? Let us go together, or stay tojiether, just as 
yon like. Your children shall be my children ; and 1 will try to make 
you happy, for all that has come and gone.” 

Koorali’s eyes were downcast. She stood very still. Only the little 
tremor which passed over her frame told of the intensity of her feeling. 

He watched her with breathless anxiety. “It is to be,” he said in 
quick incisive tones. “ You and I look straight into the soul of things. 
No fine talk—no playing with the conventional scruples. We’ve been 
driven out of all that. You trust rnc? I needn’t ask. It’s enough. 
Oive me your hand on it.” 

At his command she lifted her eyes and let them meet his full; but 
she held her hand back. Her com])osure was marvellous. It seemed 
to her that she was pressing down weights of lead on her soaring heart. 
Had it been only a question of herself, the world might go. She knew 
her weakness. But she must be strong—for her children—for him. 

“ My friend, why have you said this ? I would give all the world, 
if it were mine, that you had not said it. I have lost you now—I have 
lost you for ever! ” 

“ Folly! ” Morse said impatiently. “ Idle folly. We only take what 
lies at our, feet. Yesterday I felt as you do; but everything has 
changed to-day—for both of us. What have you got by your purity, 
and I by my scruples? Your husband accuses you of crime, and turns 
you out of house and home; and my wife deserts me in the hour of 
battle! She leaves it-for you to fight with me. Ah, you can be loyal! 
Tell me. Did I not do well to you ? Did I ever say what I felt about 
you ? Did I ever speak of love to you ? ” 

“Oh no, indeed; you never, never did. You acted like a true 
friend; and I—yes, I adored you for it.” Kooriili let herself go for a 
moment, and spoke out her heart with a passionate energy. 

“ Well—and what did wq get by that ? Did I not encourage you to 
leave London ? Did I not do all I could to help you to get aw'ay— 
and you knew how I felt to you all the time; yes, and I may say it 
now, I knew how you felt to me—Koorali ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Koorali, still with passion in her voice. “ It is all 
true. I honoured you for it; I do still. I honour you now for your— 

(or-” Her voice broke altogether. After a moment she went on, 

“ Some day, some distant day, I shall own to myself all that I felt to 
you.” For the first time, while they were speaking, the tears came 
into her eyes. “Qh, don’t you know that it is something precious to 

—something to treasure up all my life, to make me feel a better 
woman—tne thought that you have cared for me?” 

“An exceeding tenderness came into his face. He made a move¬ 
ment tov’ards her, but her very trust was a barrier. He restrained 
himself. 


292 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


“ And what have we gained by that; what have we got ? ” 

“Gained? Got? My friend”—KoorMi’s melancholy earnestness 
seemed to widen the distance between them—“ we have saved our 
honour and our conscience; we have kept the whiteness of our souls ! 
You, my dearest Iriend, you who think it nothing to throw away a 
great career for a principle—you ask me what we have gained, you 
and T, by keeping the whiteness of our souls ?” 

“We owe something to ourselves,” Morse broke in. “This has 
been forced upon us ; we haven’t sought it. Come, KoorMi,” he spoke 
to her very gently now, “ there is a crisis sometimes in people’s lives 
which can’t be disposed of by reference to the canons of any casuistry. 
You and I love each other—yes, we may say that now—we are suited 
to each other; we seem, as the romancists say, made for each other. 
I think that even on that Australian morning I had some dim percep¬ 
tion that you and I were somehow destined to stand side by side, some 
time. I wish I had never lost sight of you. I am my true self only 
with you. Come. We need each other. The world has thrust us 
both outside its doors; let us go together.” 

“Go where?” Koorali asked. “Is there any place where I could 
forget that I had brought dishonour on my boys ; or where you could 
forget that you had brought disgrace on your name and your career— 
where I could forget that I had helped you to do it ? Oh, do take pity 
on me—you, my only friend; and do not let us speak of this any 
more! ” 

“ I do take pity on you, and so 1 take you away from this place 
where you are insulted, and degraded, and miserable.” 

“Ah,” she pleaded softly, “ can a w-oman ever be really degraded but 
by herself?” 

“ Let us go to America,” Morse said; “ a great career is to be made 
there by any one who has brains and energy. KoorMi, they shall hear 
our names in Europe again! ” 

“ And your country, Mr. Morse ? Your people ? ” 

“ ]\ry country,’ he said, with a scornful and bitter laugh, “ will for 
aught I know’ echo the yells of the House of Commons! My people? 
[ am the most unpopular man in England now.” 

“ It is only the madness of a moment,” she urged. “ Every true 
heart in England will rally to you; you will stand higher than ever. 
This will be forgotten.” 

“It will not be forgotten by me.’! 

“Yes, yes; you will see that the country, the English people, have 
never for a moment lost faith in you. Why, even in that House of 

Commons, those whose opinion you cared for were with you-” 

Koorali stopped in sudden embarrassment. Morse saw what had made 
her feel embarrassed. 

“ And my wdfe ? ” he asked. “ What about her opinion ? ” 

“ Oh, that was some sudden, extraordinary misconception; I know 
it w'as. Already, perhaps, Lady Betty understands. One must 
remember how she has been brought up; and how devoted she is to 


“iV6> IVAY BUT THISr^ 293 

the Princess and the Court. Oh, believe me, that wound will be 
healed. You and Lady Betty will be friends again.” 

Morse shook his head. “ You do not know what it is for a man 
like me to have it blazoned all over town to-morrow morning that his 
aristocratic wife has left him for ever, because she believes him to 
have been an associate in an infamous plot. Only one thing on earth, 
Koor^li, can make life a good thing to me; and that is your com- 
j'.anionship. Come with me. Come! Let us give up all this noisy, 
empty world of politics, if you like. Let us live in some quiet place 
and dream.” 

“ A dream, indeed ! ” said Koorali sadly. 

“Let us watch the sunsets. Let us live in peace and honour—yes, 
honour; I repeat it. Let us be everything to each other. I know 
new what you are worth to me, and what the world is worth to both 
of us; and 1 shall make myself worth something to you. You shall 
never be sorry for trusting yourself to me.” 

“ 1 know it; in that sense—oh, I know it,” she said. She clasx)cd 
her hands on the mantel-board before her and leaned her head upon 
them. At that moment the dreariness of the struggle came upon her 
with deeper and sadder meaning. Fur an instant she allowed herself 
to drift towards the dreamland lie pictured. But in a moment she 
was facing him again, mournfully resolute. “I know that all that 
kindness and gentleness and chivalrous aflection could do for woman 
would be done by you for me—to the end,” she went on, “ to the very 
end, wherever and v\hatever that might be. But you could not turn 
wrong into right or shame into honour. Soon you would be sorry on 
my account, and I should be sorry on yours. We should end by 
making each other unhappy, just because we are not bad enough to do 
wrong and feel no remorse. See what it has come to already,” she 
added plaintively ; “ 1 can’t even ask your advice in my sad strait.” 

“I am selfish in this—1 know it,” Morse said; “but who could help 
it? Who would not pity you and love you that had seen you as I 
have seen you ? I never said so while you had a husband. Now that 
you have none, Koorali, I will save you from yourself; I will prevail 
upon you ; I will make you go with me.” 

His manner was entirely respectful; he did not stand close to her; 
he did not even take her hand. But there was a strength of emotion 
in his looks which frightened her, and although his voice was calm,his 
eyes and his words w’ere wild. Koorali found the truth forced in upon 
her that in that ciisis .‘•he could not rely on his man’s strength for a 
support; that she must think and act for both; that she alone must 
save herself and him. 

“ At least,” she said, “ you will not press me now ; this moment ? 
You will not ask me to decide to-night? Oh, you do not know how 
.serious this is for a woman with children—with sons who will one day 
grow up and know all about their mother. You will give me to-night 
to think? Ah, indeed—nd.' 0 if I hesitate it is not because of any 
want of tr St in you. But you will not jDress me—no; not to-night, 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


294 

my only friend ? ” She now showed her trust in him so far that she 
put her hand tenderly into his for a moment. He raised it, touched it 
softly with his lips, and let it drop again. 

“ 1 will come to-morrow. When ? was all he said. 

“I will write to yon,” Koorali answered. “Do not try to see me 
till you have my letter.” 

They parted without another word. Her eyes followed him as he 
moved to the door. It was well that he did not see the anguish in 
them. It was well that he did not hear the low cry which broke from 
her when the door shut behind him, and she was left alone. 

She heard him go downstairs. She heard his step in the hall below. 
He trod firmly and lightly, she thought; there seemed to be even 
something of elasticity and elation in the tread. Perhaps she had 
made him hopeful for the moment; perhaps he was thinking of a new 
life to be begun by him and her together. She heard the door open 
and then close. It closed, not with a clang, but gently, as if in that 
very moment he were tender of her nerves and her feelings. 

At the sound she Hew to the window, and, drawing aside the curtain, 
slipped out on to the little balcony. She watched him as he w'alked 
down the street, silently, like a ghost. The snow had ceased falling 
now, but everything was covered as with a sheet. The lamps cast a 
bluish light upon the pavement. She watched him disappear in the 
shadow of a church at the corner of the square. It was a saint’s day; 
there was service going on within, and the sound of the organ came to 
her and seemed to solemnize the decision she had made. The devo¬ 
tional strains and the tall dark building, with its snow-flecked spire 
and all its Gothic arches and projections traced in dazzling white, gave 
her a feeling of stay and anchorage. At best or at worst, how short 
and poor was life ! how great God’s goodness! how vast the Infinite ! 

She w'ent back again and closed the window. The air felt very cold. 
It had made her shiver. She sat down miserably on the sofa, and then 
hid her face in the pillows and broke into unrestrained tears ; for she 
knew that she was not to see him any more. 

When she had for the moment no more tears to shed, she crept 
upstairs to the room where her boys w^ere sleeping, and she knelt 
beside them and prayed. Her mind was made up; she knew what 
she had to do. Not for one instant did she doubt as to the path she 
was to tread. She was to save /u'w, and her boys, and herself. But 
she prayed for guidance as to the manner in which this Avas to be 
done, and for strength to bear up and to do it. Trul}’-, if one but 
sincerely wishes to walk the right way, “light aiiseth in the dark- 
ncssj’ and the path is seen. 


KOORALPS LETTER, 


295 


CHAPTER XXXVL 

KOORALI’S LETTER. 

Crichton did not come home thnt night. lie did not come home the 
next morning. Almost the first news that Kooihli heard on waking 
was that one of the servants had received a message from him ordering 
that his letters should be sent to the Grey IManor. 

Koorali slept late, and started up with a sense of guilt and dread in 
the bright light of a frosty morning. There was so much to do. She 
could not see her way in front of her. She must go away that very 
day—before Morse could come to her. She must steal her children, 
and hide herself and them before there was time for her purpose to 
dawn upon Crichton’s mind. But how? Where? She had no money. 
She had no friends—none at least to whom she could apply in such 
emergency. In her bewilderment she could only think of Zen. She 
would have died rather than be indebted to one of the famdy ; but 
Zen, somehow, vvas not one of the family—honest, impulsive Zen, who, 
on her own part, had some experience of suffering. Koorali resolved to 
seek assistance from Zen. But, again, how ? Of Zen’s generosity and 
loyalty she felt assured; but how could her jdans be kept secret from 
Eustace, and would not that involve their betrayal to Crichton ? How 
could she write or telegraj'h to Zen without the risk of endangering 
her own and her children’s liberty ? 

Two letters were brought to her. The handwriting of one seemed 
familiar and yet strange. She opened the o'her, of which she knew 
the superscrii)tion too well—too well. 

“ I will come for you, Koorali, to-morrow at five o’clock. 
We will take the boys with us. I think of going to Dover by an 
ordinary train. We shall leave England at once, either for Calais or 
Ostend. Where to go next I have not thought; but we can settle 
that after. For the present it_is best to have no plans. Trust your¬ 
self and your boys and your future to me, as I trust all to you. 

“ For ever 3 U)urs, 

“S. M.” 

She kissed the letter tenderly and put it in her bosom. “ I may do 
that^' she said. With it pressed thus to her heart she could have 
dreamed hers* If into Paradise. But there must be no dreams. 

She dressed in a mechanical way, and as mechanictally submitted to 
her maid’s last touches. Amelia’s curiosity was rampant when her 
mistre.'S said, “I am going to take the children away for a while. 
Have their clothes packed as soon as possible.” 

“ Shall you take me, ma’am ? ” a^ked the maid. 

“ 1 don’t know. No,” answered Koorali ab-sently. 

“And your own ihitigs, ma’am?” pursued Amelia. “Will there be 
any evening dresses required?’^ 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


296 

Koor^li gave her directions calmly and minutely. Oh, the mochcry 
of such details! It was not till she was alone again that she recol¬ 
lected the other letter she had received. As she looked at it once 
more, it flashed across her that the writing was Lord Arden’s; and 
then she remembered, with the sudden sense of a saving hand stretclied 
out to her in her need, their conversation at the Priory-on-the-Water, 
and the promise she had made him. She hastily opened the letter, 
it ran— 


“ Forrest Houses Tnesdar, Midnight. 

“Dear Mrs. Kenway, 

“I was ill the Bouse this afternoon, and I saw you and tried 
to get at you as you were leaving the Ladies’ Gallery, but there was 
a crush, and I lost you. I want very much to speak to you, though 
I know, of course, what your opinion is of the infamous charge every 
one is talking about. You must feel as keenly as I do the fact that 
Lady Betty Morse has forsaken her husband in his trouble. It must 
not be. We, who are friends of both, must not let it be. I fear that 
Morse, in a moment of disgust, may throw up his political career. 
We know that in a little while—a few days, perhaps—the country 
will do him justice; England cannot spare such a man; he must be 
saved to her. 

“May I come to jmu about midday to-morrow? If I get no 
telegram to the contrary, I shall be at your house, and, as always, at 
your full service. 

“I am, your faithful friend, 

“ Arden.” 


There was something in the tone of Arden’s letter which brought 
the blood rushing to Koorkli’s cheeks. Had he seen Morse? Did he 
guess the truth? Why did he take it for granted that she knew of 
Lady Betty’s departure? Why did he call upon her to mediate 
between husband and wife? Why did he appeal to her to save to the 
people the statesman who could lead them to honour? ’ihe very way 
in which he subscribed himself suggested that he fancied the time had 
come in which she might redeem her promise, and in which he might 
be able to help her. 

These questions revolved in her mind while she went over her 
papers, and, as methodically as she could, made preparations for her 
departure. She did not telegraph to Arden. Of course she would see 
him. She could not help looking to him in some sort of undefined 
way for aid in this emergency. She did not know how he could help 
her, unless in seeking out Zen—this was the one plan which took 
shape in her thoughts. She did not even know what she should say 
to him. She could not make up her mind to tell him in plain words 
that she had quarrelled hopelessly with her husband and that she 
meant to steal away her children; but it seemed to her, looking back 
now, that he had all along been destined to come to her assistance. 


KOORALPS LETTER. 


297 

It seemed to her, as she pondered in a confused way, mixing up 
present and past, that when they had talked together at the Priory and 
he had asked if he might be her friend, she had foreseen this trouble, 
then dim and shapeless in the future, and for that very reason had 
liesitated to take him at his word. She had felt, then, that she could 
not lightly give a promise which some day might mean a great deal. 

At a little after twelve Arden came. He was shown into the front 
drawing-room. She was in the back room, with the door between 
closed. Presently she came in to him. As she pushed aside tlie 
'portiere, and advanced, a little wasted figure in a black dress, with 
pale and resolute face and deep sad eyes, all his previous suspicions 
were confirmed, and he saw that something momentous had happened 
to her. 

She shook hands with him, but did not sit down. The room seemed 
cold and cheerless, and the fire was unligbted. Arden looked a little 
awkward and embarrassed, and his eyes met hers searchingly. 

“ Mrs. Ken way,” he said, without any conventional preface, “ I wish 
that I could have seen you last night.” 

A rush of colour overspread her face; but she did not answer. 

“ I have a great deal to say to you-” he began. 

She moved to the door through which she had entered. “ Come in 
here,” she said. “ There’s a fire. It’s cold in this room.” 

lie followed her, and threw a swift comprehensive glance round. A 
look of apprehension came over his face. The place was all a litter 
of papers—packets tied up and documents of different kinds. 'J'he 
drawers of the writing-table stood open and were in confusion, and 
shreds of torn letters over-filled and lay round the waste-paper basket. 
Koor5,li moved some books from a chair and motioned to it. 

He did not seat himself. As she stood by the mantel-piece he made 
an abrupt movement towards her, as if he would have entreated or 
implored her to desist from some course to which he guessed. But he 
restrained himself. 

“ Mrs. Ken way,” he exclaimed, “ what does it mean ? You are 
making preparations for a journey at once ? ” 

“I am going away,” she answered qiuetl 3 \ 

Arden gazed at her in pain and bewilderment. “ What does it all 
mean?” he repeated, and gave a strange little laugh. “Every one 
is going away. Lady Betty has left her husband. I met Morse last 

night. He, too, said that he was going away. And you-” He 

advanced a step, and his eyes rested full upon her with such anxious 
questioning in them that her own drooped. “ You haven’t got any 
rash project in your mind? I know that you and your husband 
intended to leave England in a few weeks. It’s only that something 
has occurred to hasten your voyage to Farnesia, and you are getting 
ready. That is all ? ” 

“Ko,” she replied, still composedly. “It isn’t that, Lord Arden.' 
I’m not going to Farnesia with my husband. We are going to 
Australia—my boys and I.” 

2Q 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


298 

There was still alarm and perplexity on Arden’s face. “And 
Morse ?” he asked involuntarily. “ Where is Morse going ? ” Then, 
a moment later, he hated himself for having said the words and for 
the implication they conveyed. KoorMi became as pale as death. 
She knew that Arden had discovered her secret. She understood now 
his letter—his strange manner. For a moment he thought she was 
going: to faint. The emotion she showed deepened his almost frenzied 
anxiety. He dreaded the worst. And yet something told him that, 
at whatever cost, she would be true to her womanhood. It was a 
relief when she raised her head with a quick proud gesture that he 
knew. Her face was less ashen now; but the strained look about her 
mouth told him how hard it was for her to keep the muscles in check, 
and her eyes were bright with tears as she turned them to his and 
then averted them. 

“ I don’t know where Mr. Morse is going,” she said, bringing out her 
words with difficulty. “ I hope—I believe that he will stay in England, 
and show the people that he is not to be crushed by calumny. It 
would seem cowardly in him to go away. It would be wrong; and 
if he can get to feel that, he will never do what is wrong. Oh, Lord 
Arden, his friends ought to urge this upon him!” Her voice faltered. 
“They ought to point out to him what madness it would be to throw 
away his career in a moment of anger and disgust.” 

“ You are right,” said Arden. “ He is a statesman, with a duty to 
his country. Whatever his theories may be—and they are not mine 
—he is a far-seeing, noble-minded man, and he has England’s greatness 
at heart. I did not do him justice before the test of the elections 
came. I believed him to be merely an ambitious politician eager for 
p(nver. I do him better justice now.” 

Koorali’s eyes glistened. “ You will tell him this,” she said, and 
raised her hands in a gesture of appeal. “The storm will blow over. 
In a little while he may be contented again—it will take a little 
while.” She seemed to be speaking less to her companion than in 
argument with herself. “His career, his ambition, his cause, will fill 
his life and make up to him for everything. And his wife will go 
back to him. He mustn’t be hard on her. Oh, Lord Arden, you will 
speak to him. You will tell him all this I ” 

There was genuine pity in Lord Arden’s face. “ And you yourself, 
Mrs. Kenway ? You, too, will speak to him ? ” 

“ No,” she answered, with a strange solemnity in her tone; “ I shall 
not see him again.” 

She turned her head, and, covering her face with her hands, leaned 
her forehead against the mantel-piece. The strain was relaxed at last. 
He saw that her frame shook with suppressed sobs. His heart ached 
in compassion for her, and yet he could not by word or gesture attempt 
to comfort her. 

He moved away, and stood with his back to her, looking fixedly at 
the stained-glass window above her writing-table. For years and 
years Arden remembered the particular colouring and design of that 


KOORALPS LETTER. 


299 

window, and he associated it always with one of the most sorrowful 
moments he had ever known. Presently the convulsive sounds ceased, 
and he knew she was calm again. When he went to her once more 
she had raised her face. It was wan and piteous, hut except for a 
slight trembling she gave no sign of agitation. 

“ I am ashamed of myself for breaking down,” she said, with a 
pathetic smile. “But I’ve had a great deal to try me the last tw6 
days. I didn’t sleep much last night; and I think I’m worn 
out.” 

He took her hand as if she had been a child, and placed her in a big 
arm-chair close to the fire, seating himself near her. 

“ I don’t wonder that you are worn out,” he said. “ You are ill. 
You have looked ill for a long time; and yesterday upset you. It 
upset every one. We won’t talk of Morse now, Mrs. Kenway, but 
about you. You may depend upon me to do my best—my very best 
—to bring his wife back to him, and to keep him true to his country 
and to his real self. That is what you and I—what all his real friends 
must wish. I think that I can understand your feeling.” He waited 
for a few moments, not looking at her. 

KoorMi leaned back in her chair and wearily closed her eyes. His 
words brought a sense of relief, but one of pain and strangeness too. 
It was as though she saw everything slipping away from her. 

Arden went on. “I want to know about yourself. I am sure that 
you are in trouble—trouble of some definite kind that perhaps I can 
help you in. Mrs. Ken way, don’t you remember our talk at the 
Priory, and your promise that if you ever needed a friend’s help you’d 
let me give it? You said then that the time wasn’t likely to come; 
but I felt somehow that it would. And, though I’m sorry to find my 
presentiment verified, still I am glad to be here now. 1 asked you to 
let me call this morning because 1 had a kind of instinct that you 
wanted somebody. Will you trust me?” 

Koorkli leaned forward and looked at him earnestly, her arms clasp¬ 
ing her knees in that childlike attitude of hers. 

“ I will; I will, indeed 1 ” she said brokenly. “ I think you* can 
help me. I am in great trouble, and I have no relations and no friends 
—except Zen. I can’t write to Zen because of Eustace. I dare not 
run any risk of my husband finding out where I have taken my boys, 
till we have gone quite away. He would try to get them from me. 
But you will go to Zen, Lord Arden, and tell her; and she will come 
to me. I can trust Zen. I know she will gladly help me; and she is 
the only person I could take help from—of that kind.” 

Lord Arden understood her meaning. He dreaded to say a word 
which could wound her sensitive pride. “ I am certain you may rcdy 
on Mrs. Eustace’s good heart,” he said warmly. “I will gladly go to 
her and explain everything. But, Mrs. Kenway, I don’t know yet 
what has happened. I can only guess.” He hesitated a little, then 
he saw the faint colour rising to her cheeks, and went on hurriedly, 
“You have not been happy with your husband. There has been a 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


300 

disagreement; and you want to go back to your own people and take 
your children.” . 

“Yes,” she answered simply. “I’m going away. My marriage 
has been a terrible mistake. It’s all ended now. We have both 
agreed that it is best so. We can never come together again— 
never!” 

“But,” he said, hesitating again, “if you have agreed, there might 
be some settlement—some arrangement. And the children ? ” 

“Oh,” she cried passionately, “don’t you see? We can’t live 
together again—he does not wish it. But he wants to punish me by 
separating me from my children.” 

“ Is there no alternative ? ” he urged. “ Your friends—your family 
might mediate.” 

She shook her head. “ It’s no use. I’ve thought it all out. There’s 
nothing for me to do hut to go back to Australia. I must leave this 
house at once—this very day. I must hide myself somewhere till the 
steamer starts. He doesn’t think that I will take the boys, because 
I have no money. But Zen will give me some, and I shall be free.” 
The yearning of an imprisoned soul was in KoorMi’s tone. Arden 
was inexpressibly touched. “ I can’t give up my children,” she went 
on, with gathering agitation. “ No one could have the heart to tell 
me that it would be right. No one could tell me that I must go on 
suffering—go on living a life of degradation. I have borne so much; 
I can bear no more.” She covered her face with her hands for a 
moment, then looked at him again. “ I am not altogether selfish,” 
she added more quietly. “It is for their sake as well as for my own, 
I should deserve punishment if I allowed my boys to grow up into 
men like their father.” 

Her lips tightened resolutely. Her face had lost its expression of 
pathos and helplessness. It was hard and cold; the face of a woman 
who has endured the utmost possible to her and will bend no more. 
He saw that she had taken the law into her own hands, and that 
w'hatever her case might be she would admit no argument upon it 
It was his assumption that she was justified in the course she meant 
to take. He had no good opinion of Crichton Ken way, whose 
character, he had learned by one of those accidents which reveal 
something of a man’s private life, did not bear scrutiny. He had 
Avatched Koorhli in her relations with her husband, and Kad admired 
her loyalty and her patience. He knew that only strong provocation 
could have forced from her the avords she had just uttered. He felt 
that he had no right to ask any questions. There was a short silence. 
Koorali broke it. 

“I see that you doubt whether I am acting wisely,” she said quietly 
“ You do not know everything; and I cannot tell you. I can never 
tell any one. If you knew, you would see that there is no other life I 
can lead. I am not grasping happiness at the cost of duty. There 
can be no happiness for me in this world except what comes through 
my children. I have a right to take them till they are old enough to 


KO OR ALPS LETTER. 


301 

be brought up at school. Then, perhaps, something may be arranged; 
but not now. I don’t claim more than my right. I don’t forget what 
they owe to their father, or what I owe to my husband.” 

She spoke rapidly, with undertoned decision, and her eyes met his 
fixedly. He seemed lost in thought. Suddenly he got up and stood 
over her. 

“ How soon do you want to leave this house?” he asked. 

‘’To-day! to-day ! As soon as ever I can. I mu&t get out of this 
place before many hours ; before an hour, if I can.” 

“ But, tell me ; why are you in such haste ? Can’t you wait even 
until to-morrow ? ” 

“ Oh, to-morrow, to-morrow ! ” she exclaimed passionately ; “ there 
is no to-morrow for me—I must go at once. Now, now, now! ” 

“ Are you afraid,” he asked, “ that your husband will come back and 
do you some harm ? ” 

“ No, no; he will not come. I was not thinking of him. Oh 1 ” 
A cry broke fiom her, a cry of alarm lest she should have betrayed her 
secret. She had betrayed it. Arden knew now why she was eager to 
go at once. He, too, felt that she must go; that she must not stay 
one hour longer in that house. 

“ If you knew all,” she cried impatiently, “ you would know that I 
am doing right, and that there is nothing else for me to do.” 

“ I am sure you are doing right,” Arden said; “ I am sure there is 
nothing else for you to do, since you tell me so.” 

“ Oh, thank you, ever so much!” She could have kissed his hand 
in the fervour of her gratefulness to him for his belief in her. So 
narrow is the horizon of humanity’s mood of joy or sorrow, that the 
rush of a sensation almost like delight filled and flooded her soul at the 
mere thought that in that hour of trial she was not utterly alone; that 
the sympathy and the trust of one generous heart sustained her. 

“I understand enough,” Arden said. “There’s no need for me to 
tell you that I feel for you deeply. I w'as not thinking of whether you 
are right or wrong. I take your word. I’m only concerned as to how 
I can best help you, and a plan has occurred to me. You are right; 
you must leave at once, hlave you any idea when the Australian 
steamer starts?” 

“ Yes. Next Tuesday, I think—the 22nd. I thought,” she added, 
alter a moment’s pause, “ that I could find some lodging where no one 
would think of looking for me.” 

“ Oh no,” he exclaimed, “ that wouldn’t do. You must not hide 
yourself in that sort of way. 'I'here must be no suggestion that you 
are leaving England under a cloud. Don’t you see,” he went on with 
gentle imperiousness, for she had looked up at him in a pained, won¬ 
dering way, “ that you are a woman who has attracted a great deal of 
attention, Mrs. Ken way, and society won’t be content to let you slip 
out of its sight unnoticed? It is very important that people should 
not be allowed a chance of saying ill-natured things.” 

<‘Yes—I know,” she said; “but I can’t help it, and I mustn’t 


302 


“ 77 /^ RIGHT HONOURABLE” 


mind. I am leaving my husband, and of course-” She broke off 

abruptly. 

“ 1 want you to come to my father’s, and stay there with your boys 
till you sail. I will bring your sister-in-law to you.” 

KdorMi started and shwnk back. “Lord Forrest. Oh no! I couldn’t. 
What would he think ? ” 

“ Nothing except what is kind and chivalrous. It would be a delight 
to him to be of service to you, Mrs. Kenway. He has the greatest 
liking and admiration for you. You would not be safe at your sister- 
in-law’s. I mean that your husband—or—or—any one who wanted 
to find you would naturally look for you thei-e; and besides, society 
doesn’t know very much about Mrs. Eustace Kenway. No; you must 
think of your children and your father and your friends; and you must 
leave this country in such a way that spite itself could find nothing to 
say against you. Now, Mrs. Kenway, my father has odd, eccentric 
ways, and he does not fall in with the new times or with society ; but 
I am proud to be able to say that what you do with his sanction and 
under the shelter of his authority and his care will be held by society 
to be well done. No one living will suspect him of countenancing a 
wrong thing or helping man or woman who did not deserve the help of 
every gentleman and every Christian. Come, you see that I am right.” 

She put out her hand in silent gratitude. He took it in his, raised 
it chivalrously to his lips, and then only said, “ Come, let us make our 
arrangements.” 

She felt that he was right. He had removed the one difficulty out 
of her path. She would be safe in every way under Lord Forrest’s 
roof until she could sail with her boys.* There was a streak of melan¬ 
choly humour in the thought which came into her mind that Crichton 
Kenway might be trusted not to say a word in disapproval of any 
arrangement which was sanctioned by Lord Forrest; indeed, would 
probably feel rather proud that his wife had found shelter even from 
him under the roof of this grand old Jacobite peer. She felt safe now. 
She knew that she could save herself and Morse. 

“You would like to be alone now for a little?” Arden said, after 
they had settled about her going to his father’s house. 

“Yes,” she said; “I should like to be alone for a little—^just a little.” 

She had still something to do. Perhaps Arden could have guessed 
what it was. 

Koorali’s arrangements were made, her trunks were packed, her 
chib Iren, wondering where they were to be taken, were dressed and 
waitiui; in the nursery. There still remained some little time before 
the hour Arden had fixed for her to meet him at Forrest House. He 
had thought it wiser that he should not return for her, but that she 
should leave her husband’s roof alone. 

She had looked round the familiar rooms, and had wondered vaguely 
what Crichton would say and do when he came back and found them 
empty. She had said her farewell to them and to the associations of 
her married life. She had no lingering regrets, no sentimental desire 


KOORALPS LETTER. 


303 

to dally with the situation. There was in her heart no feeling of ten¬ 
derness towards her husband, of pity or personal sorrow. She had got 
beyond all that. The greater had swallowed up the less. Had she 
ever loved him there might have been room for wifely emotion. As it 
was, it seemed to her now that she had never been his wife at all in 
the real and noble sense of the word ; and this severance of their lives 
was a saving operation in life-surgery rather than a catastrophe. She 
had passed beyond the limit of conventional feeling. She was experi¬ 
encing an ordeal in which only the ruling instincts of her nature sur¬ 
vived—duty and love. 

There was one last task to be performed, the bitterest, the hardest. 
At five o’clock Morse would come. He, too, would find the house 
empty of her. She had not ventured to write to him at his own house, 
or his club, or to the House of Commons. She did not know what his 
movements might be, and feared lest her letter might not reach him. 
She went into her own little sitting-room, where she had received 
Arden, and set herself to write. But the pen dropped from her fingers. 
She leaned her elbows on the writing-table and buried her face in her 
hands. It was over—the bright dream which had first shone upon her 
girlhood, and which had come again shedding such radiance over her 
grey life. Before her all seemed black as night. She could imagine 
no future. The conflict she had gone through was as the wrench 
between body and soul. It was like death—now that the struggle 
was over. The soul had parted from the body ; a corpse remained. 

But the work she had yet to do must be done. She rallied all her 
strength of heart and mind, and she wrote a letter to Morse. She 
gave herself no further time to think; she wrote it at breathless 
speed, though the tears sometimes blinded her. Then she gave it to 
her maid and told her what to do. 

At five o’clock Morse came to the deserted house. He asked for 
Mrs. Crichton Kenway, and was shown upstairs into her little sitting- 
room. He assumed that she was waiting for him. His heart was 
steel in its determination. Nothing on earth was worth much to him 
any more but only Koorkli. He closed his mind against all thought 
of what the world would say; all that was over. He had resisted 
every impulse to seek her love until fate threw them together; left 
them side by side and alone. They were as two who have been put 
ashore on some desert island in the midst of a vast ocean and left 
there alone. What were society’s laws, conventionality’s laws, for them? 
All he wanted now was to get out of England with her, caring little 
where they went, so that it was out of England. In the bitterness of 
his heart he hoped that he might never see England again—never, 
never again. 

A woman’s step was heard. Morse was standing with his back to 
the fireplace. He made a movement forward ; but it was not Koorkli 
who came. It was Koorali’s maid. 

“ Please, sir,” she said, “ Mrs. Kenway has just gone out; but she 
asked me to give you this letter.” The girl put a letter into Morse’s 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


304 

hand, busied herself a moment in brightening the light of the lamp, 
and then left him alone. 

Morse looked at the letter. Too well already he knew what it would 
tell him. She was gone from him for ever! It did not need a pro¬ 
phetic soul to tell him that. With an iron composure he drew the 
lamp nearer to him, and he read Koorali’s letter. 

“ My Best, almost my Only Friend, 

“You will not be angry with me for what I am doing—I 
know you will not, when you think it over. There is nothing else for 
me to do—and for you. I am going away; I am going back to my 
father in South Britain. I am going to begin life all over again—with 
what a difference! 

“ You will not try to see me again; I know you will not, since I ask 
you. It would not be possible for us to meet again just now. I have 
thought that it would not be right to put you to the useless pain of 
seeing me—since we must separate; and so I have taken on me to 
decide for both. 

“ Think of yourself, my friend—of your career and jmur country. 
Ah! even if 1 could forget myself and my children and my God, I 
could not forget you! 1 could not forget what is due to you and 
your future and your fame. You will forgive your wife; it was only 
a moment’s weakness. You must remember her associations and her 
bringing-up. She is not to be tco much blamed; and, then, are we 
not all to be blamed? 

“ Perhaps, some time long dislant now, when you are older, when I 
am old, you will come out to South Britain again and see the places 
you knew there and some of the friends. Perhaps we shall talk over 
all this, and then I shall be able to tell jmu all I feel, all I have felt, 
without fear or shame. 

“I could keep writing on and on, but to what end? You know all 
that I could say. I pray for you ; I hope for you. Good-bye ! 

“ KoorAli.” 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

“l WILL ORDER MY HEART TO LEAR IT.” 

Dusk was gathering when Morse left KoorMi’s house. It was a 
gloomy evening, and the sky was heavy with gathering snow. Here 
and there lamps twinkled, but the western horizon was red still, and 
the old grey church at the end of the street, its spire and battlements 
outlined in white, stood out venerable and solemn against dull copper- 
coloured clouds, and seemed to rebuke the fever and fret of human 
passion. Yesterday’s snow lay yet on the ground, and hung on the 
trees, but its beauty was gone, its purity sullied. 

Morse walked on like a man in a dream, his footsteps crunching th(‘ 
unswept snow with monotonous regularity. He found himself some- 


"/ WILL ORDER MY HEART TO BEAR ITT 305 

how in the Green Park. For a while he was hardly conscious of his 
movements. He was making for his desolate home, but he scarce 
knew why he was going there, or, indeed, whither he was going. 

Presently he got into the streets again. An old crossing-sweeper 
whom he knew touched his hat, looking as though he had somethinc^ 
to say, and Morse, still in a dream, found himself stopping to speak to 
the man. 

“ Bad times these,” Morse said mechanically, as he put a coin into 
the sweeper’s hand, and then he corrected himself with a harsh little 
laugh. “ Good for yon, my friend, and more dirty weather coming. 
You shoiild be thankful.” 

“ Thank yon, sir,” s dd the man ; and he looked at Morse with that 
odd, wistful, moralizing expression which may be noticed sometimes 
on the fiices of those who have seen better days but are resigned to 
circumstances. “Life is as it comes, sir. It has its pains and pleasures, 
and a deal more pain than pleasure. But you’re in the right. Thank¬ 
fulness is the cheapest sauce for both.” 

“ You’ve seen a good deal of life, and that’s your conclusion ?” said 
Morse. 

“ Yes, sir, close on sixty years, and thirty of them married years, 
that came to an end yesterday.” 

“ What do you mean?” said Morse again with his harsh laugh. 
“ Has your wife run away from you?” 

“No, sir; she went straight all her life, and she brought me a 
family that’s dead or gene crooked. And there was only us two left, 
and she died yesterday. We never had a quarrel all those thirty 
years, and that’s more, sir, than most married couples could say—high 
or low.” 

The man turned abruptly away, and began to sweep vigorously. 

“You’re right, my friend,” said Morse in a bitter tone. “That’s 
more than many a married couple can say, even after ten years or less. 
You have had thirty—thirty years of confidence and affection. Well, 
as 3 ’’ou say, thankfulness is the cheapest sauce for either pleasure or 
pain. I’m very sorry for you.” 

He put some more money into the man’s hand, and passed quickly 
on, with the thought biting his heart that parting by death from some 
loved one is not the worst trial that can befall a human companionship. 
Then he seemed to lose self-consciousness again until he became aware 
that he avas in his own study and that he had taken a volume olf the 
table and was looking into it. It was a volume of Horace. He had 
opened it at the filth satire of the second book, and his eyes rested on 
certain words—“ Fortem hoc animura tolerare jubebo.” 

“ I will order my stout heart to bear it.” Such is the noble language 
in which Horace, not always one to appreciate high resolve, makes 
Ulysses answer to the question,—“What will you do should cruel 
misfortune blight your dearest hopes?” Will Morse now order his 
stout heart to bear the sudden blight that has come over his dearest 
hopes? Will he crush down his ardent longings; rouse himself from 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


306 

his dream of perfect union in some far-off Eden, and seek consolation 
in all the cynical commonplaces which proclaim that there can be no 
abiding happiness, no enduring harmony of souls? Will he go back 
to his “ world of men,” determined to forget the woman he loved and 
for whom he would have given up all ? A man of high purpose, who 
at least wishes always to do right, will stoutly bear such a blow. He 
will refuse to seek any relief from pain, and will go on as before with 
the business of his life, suffering indeed, but unsubdued; or else, 
admitting that he cannot quite endure it for the time, will seek dis¬ 
traction, perhaps in travel, with the sincere, strong wish to find healing 
of his wound and to come back and do his duty in his world of men. 
When the first shock and pain were over, Morse in his heart acknow¬ 
ledged that Koorali had done right; acknowledged that her woman’s 
nature had taught her a higher lesson of duty than he had learned in 
all his man’s experience and from man’s code of honour. 

But he had been hit hard. When, standing in her room, he first 
read her letter, he flung out both arras like a man who had received a 
bulletin the chest. He had known what was coming; yes; but he 
felt the shock all the same; even as one who goes into a battle with 
full foreboding that he is to die there yet tosses up his arms convul¬ 
sively when the bullet comes that kills him. 

Now that first shock was over, and he was once more in his lonely 
room brooding over all that had passed. He had thrown himself upon 
the broad leather couch near the window, and was sitting, his elbows 
on the back of it, his chin upon his hands, his eyes aimlessly attracted 
by that painting of a desolate, snowy landscape that hung over the 
mantel-piece opposite. The light of a gas-jet fell on the picture and 
gave it a startling prominence. The long, straight, lonely road which 
cut it in two and stretched to the red horizon ; the waste of untrodden 
snow on either side ; the gnarled willows in the foreground ; a solitary 
figure outlined against the sky; a certain weirdness and melancholy 
suggestiveness in the whole conception, simple as it was, all caught 
Morse’s mood, and seemed to him typical of his own condition. It re¬ 
minded him in some strange way of the wide stretch of meadow below 
the Grey Manor where he had walked with Koorali. He imagined the 
meadows now, snow-covered, bleak; stricken, like his and her feeling 
for one another, which had then been so innocent of wrong, so tender, 
so sadly sweet. He thought of her bright, gentle ways that afternoon; 
of her girl-like pleasure in her reeds and flowers; of the light that had 
come into her face at the sight of him. He thought of her with her 
children; and into this recollection of her there stole a feeling of 
sanctity, and then a deep hopeless regret. Oh, what unfading happi¬ 
ness for both, had she been his wife, the mother of his children! How 
tenderly he would have guarded her against any shadow of pain. Into 
what fulness of beauty and perfume would her nature have blossomed 

under his loving^care. While the good to himself- Are not such 

women as Koorali heaven-sent guides to lead men to noble things ? 
And now he must never see her more. They must each go their Avay, 



‘'7 WILL ORDER MY HEART TO BEAR ITT 307 

and notliing would remain for either but a seared memory. He must 
travel his road in loneliness, and she in worse than loneliness. Better 
they had never met. He had meant her so much good! He had 
brought her only sorrow! 

A groan burst from him. He covered his face, and in the solitude 
of the room a great sob shook his strong fr^me. Soul and body seemed 
to spend themselves in the cry, “ Koorali! KoorMi! ” To think of 
her cruelly treated, misprized, when to him she would have been the 
very light of life. God! it was maddening. Could there be any 
scheme of an overruling Providence in this phantasia of existence— 
this meaningless tangle of incongruities and contradictions? Either a 
set of devils had the management of affairs and were playing at an 
infernal game with human hearts for counters, or everything was 
chance, and love and belief and all the deeper emotions of humanity 
mere parts of the ghastly joke. 

While he thus brooded, a hush seemed to fall upon him as‘though 
an invisible hand had been laid upon his shoulder or a presence in the 
room were in some way making itself felt. He looked up suddenly and 
wildly. All was as it had been. The light still shone brightly upon 
the picture, and on that lonely figure plodding on through the snow. 
Only the fire had gone down. He must have been sitting there a long 
time ; he w'ondered mechanically how long, and got up and looked at 
the clock, though a moment later the hour had passed from his mind. 
He seated himself again, and, as he did so, said aloud, with a bitter 
hard laugh, “ There’s an end of it.” 

His own voice startled him. It was as if another voice had spoken. 
Tlie hush dee])ened. Then there came u])on him an experience not 
common with him. He became aware of the presence of that subtle 
and mysterious influence which even many a cold materialist must at 
some time have felt, the power without one’s-self working not for good 
but for evil. Strange promptings rose in Morse’s mind. It was as 
though they came not from the depths of his own nature, but were 
whispered to him from without. It was as though there were truth in 
the theory which he had sometimes slighted, that the human spirit 
must force its w^y through beings and powers of the unseen world, of 
which any hobtile one may in moments of depression or mental sick¬ 
ness creep near and make its evil influence felt. A voice seemed to 
speak to him, and to argue with him. 

“ Why try to rally against this blow in the old way of stoics and 
philosophers and Christians ? ” the voice said to him. “ Let it pass; 
it is nothing to a man of spirit. No woman is worth all this coil. 
She would have disappointed you, or you would have disappointed her. 
She would have grown tired of you, or you would have grown tired of 
her. See what has come of your marriage; where is your wife now ? 
Women are only meant to be the amusements and the playthings of 
strong and sensible men. You are young enough yet; you have time 
for enjoyment and ambition; nothing else in life is worth thinking of. 
Ambition was your idol; make it your idol again. Go in for success ; 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


308 

become great in the way that other men become great. Is it not the 
height of folly and vain-glory to imagine that you are nobler, more 
disinterested than the politicians around you? You know that your 
belief in yourself is false. You know that egotism is the root of your 
patriotism. Y'ou know that your love for the people is only another 
name for love of power. You know that in your heart you are not 
really devoted to any public cause; this very day you would have 
flung up every cause, every public object, for the sake of a woman. 
Why sacritice any more for what you are not devoted to in your heart ? 
Why pretend to any regard for virtue and duty and all the rest of it ? 
You are not virtuous; you are in love with another man's wife. You 
would have gone off with her, only she would not. Duty? you did 
not think much of your duty to your own wife—the Avil'e of your 
youth. You are just as bad as other men. Don’t be a hypocrite ; go 
in for taking life as other men take it, and get all the enjoyment you 
can out of it. Go and see Lady Warriner to-morrow”—this was a 
pretty and clever woman who openly })rofessed a great admiration for 
Morse, and had tried in vain to get up a flirtation with him—“she 
will amuse you; and you need not restrain yourself as long as nothing 
gets into the newspapers. When you are tired of her you can drop 
her and take up with some other woman. Go in for success in politics, 
and make yourself Prime Minister, never mind by what means, and 
have all the enjoyment you can meanwhile. The woild that howls at 
you now w'ill applaud you then ; and, as for your conscience and your 
soul, see what you have done with them already! It is of no use 
'trying to be any better than the rest of the world when you are not 
any better. Other men get power and pleasure by being bad; you are 
bad; you know it. Why not have the power and the pleasure too? ” 
That subtlest, most demoralizing form of temptation to the really con¬ 
scientious nature, the temptation to think that r'^trieval is hopeless, was 
rung with pitiless iteration into Morse’s ear.* “ Y’ou have fallen ; you 
cannot be again as you were; be content to be just as bad as others, 
since, afier all, they are no worse than you ! ” 

Every one is fainilar with the struggle that lakes })lace within him¬ 
self—the struggle of the two sides of the one nature; the deliberate 
weighing of right and wrong, of present gratification against after¬ 
penalty. But the temptation to Morse seemed to come distinctly from 
without. All the time he knew that his own soul held no such 
struggle as that now forced on him; he knew that the promptings he 
heard were not the promptings of even the worse part of his nature or 
any part of his nature. They came from without. That was as clear 
to him as any physical fact in the material woild around him. Of 
course his nerves, his spirit, his senses, his heart, had been put to the 
severest strain by the events succeeding events of the last few days. 
The riots ; the death of Masterson; the odious charges against him¬ 
self; the scene in the House ot Commons—only yesterday, and seeming 
already so far away; the desertion of Lady Betty, about the mitigating 
features of which he knew nothing as yet; his sudden, wild, despairing 


“/ WILL ORDER MY HEART TO BEAR IT:^ 309 

efiort to prevail on KoorMi to po away with him; the shock of her dis¬ 
appearance ; the pathos of her letter ;—all this was too much for even 
his strong frame and brave spirit to bear. He was in that condition of 
mind and body which blurs and confuses the distinction between the 
within and the without; between the real and the unreal; that con¬ 
dition to which, in the words of Schiller, the kingdom of the ghosts is 
so easily opened. Morse did not believe even then, even for the 
moment, that a voice was actually speaking to him as he stood in his 
lonely room; and yet the words seemed to sound in his ear as if they 
came straight from the lips of some tempter in bodily presence. 
Again and a^ain the suggestions of evil poured in upon him, and all 
the time he kept saying to himself, “These promptings are not mine ; 
they come from no part of my nature; they are foreign to me.” No 
man was less open in his ordinary condition to the influences which 
make men credulous and supply the demands of the mesmerist and the 
sorcerer; and even now, even in his present condition, Morse tried to 
pnll himself together and composedly examine into the real source of 
the appeal thus sounding in his ears. But the more resolutely he 
v/atched, the more coolly he listened, the more distinct came the 
promptings from without. “ Enjoj’’ life; live for power and pleasure. 
Your life, so far, has been a failure every way because you vainly 
fancied you were better than other men. Think nothing of any parti¬ 
cular woman. Shame for a strong man to make himself the dependent 
i»f some one woman. 1 ’ake women as they come; make playthings of 
them ; treat them as other men do. If life must end in remorse, let it, 
at least, be lived out meanwhile in gratification of the only impulses 
that make it bearable. You have earned for yourself remorse in any 
case. Since you are to pay the forfeit, why not enjoy the game ? ” 

Then, as one shakes himself free of a nightmare and breathes deeply 
and awakes, Morse got up suddenly, flung the mood and the tempta¬ 
tion from him. “ I will order my stout heart to bear it,” he said to 
himself. “ I would have committed a crime—yes; but she has saved 
me. 1 thank her, and I thank Heaven that made her. I will live 
as she would have me live. She shall sec that I am not unworthy to 
be remembered by her.” 

He buried his head in his hands and tears came into his eyes. The 
tears softened, ielieved, and made strong his heart. 


CHAPTER XXXVHI. 

ZEN COMES. 

KoorAli and her children were met almost at the entrance to Forrest 
House by the old peer himself and a stately ancient dame, his house¬ 
keeper. He received Koorali with a chivalrous courtesy, a protecting 
tenderness that in her forlorn and miserable state moved her nearly 


310 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


to tears. Her nerves liad been so cruelly wrung, she had felt so keenly 
the sting of her dependence when brought face to face with the position, 
and forced, now tLat the moment for action had come, to realize her 
utter helplessness without money and without relatives who would 
take her part against the world, that to find herself thus lifted into 
a secure refuge, befriended and honoured by one whose very name 
would be a shield against calumny, was relief so intense as to break 
down the grim composure which had sustained her in her hard resolve. 
A sob shook her voice when she tried to utter her thanks for Lord 
Forrest’s greeting, in which he begged her to consider his house hers 
and to command his entire service. She could only look up at him 
with dimmed, frightened eyes and gratefully press the hand that had 
taken hers. She had the feeling of one in a dream when the massive 
doors closed behind her on the outer world. The square hall, lighted 
by stained glass windows emblazoned in armorial designs, the rich-hued 
tapestry, the strange carvings, the fifteenth-century cabinets, the 
Gubbio ])laques and Palissy ware, the array of portraits that looked 
down from the walls like living people of a bygone time; even the 
stately old nobleman, with his white pointed beard, his deep-set dark 
eyes, his courtly bearing—all seemed part of her dream. The servants, 
grave and dignified, in harmony with their surroundings, stood back 
as the old man offered Koorali his arm, and led her up the broad stair¬ 
case, and along a corridor, to the suite of rooms which had been hastily 
prepared for her. 

The boys were a little awed and frightened by the strangeness and 
solemnity of it all. Miles clung to his mother, gazing up at her with 
scared, wistful eyes; and Lance uttered a dismayed ejaculation as she 
moved away with her host. But there was something in Lord Arden’s 
cheery hand-clasp, and he walked on and looked bravely round him 
at the paintings and the bric-a-hrac, and asked no questions, like a 
well-mannered child. 

The sitting-room into which Lord Forrest took Koorkli had, too, 
an old-world flavour of memories and associations. It put her in mind 
of one of the rooms she had seen in the Little Trianon, and there was 
a melancholy suggestion of something feminine in the decorations, 
which were a,fter the style of the French Regency—in the faded blue 
satin hangings, and in the arrangement of the furnitui;^. 

The old man glanced round with the air of one to w’hom the place 
was unfamiliar, and in whom it had awakened tender and half-painful 
recollections. 

“ This was my daughter’s room, Mrs. Kenway,” he said, “ and it is 
yours as long as you will honour my house by staying in it. You’ll 
let me come and see you here sometimes, and you will pay me a visit 
by-and-by in my bookworm’s corner? I am an old recluse, as you 
know, and I don’t interfere much with Arden, who entertains his 
friends in his own fashion; but you are my friend and my guest as 
well as his, and I shall claim my rights over you.” 

He raised her hand to his lips as he had once before done, and was 


ZEN COMES. 


taking his leave. Koorali found words now. She cla'5ped his hand in 
both of hers, and her pathetic eyes, wet with tears, met his. 

“ Oh, Lord Forrest! ” she exclaimed, with a sob, “ I don’t know 
how to tell you what I feel. I don’t know how to thank you for being 
so good to me. 1 had nobody. I was in trouble—” her voice broke 
for a second—“I did so want help—and you have helped me. And 
I have no claim on you—or anything. But I shall think of you and 
be grateful to you when I am far away. I shall never forget!” 

Lord Forrest looked at her gravely and tenderly. “ My dear,” he 
said, “a man of my years and my ways, who has left himself so little 
chance of doing good to any one, finds a benefaction oonft^rred on him 
by any one who wants a helping hand and allows his to be the hand.” 
'Vith these words he left her. 

Presently a maid, who seemed already established as Koorali’s atten¬ 
dant, took the children away. The home-likeness deepened her sense 
of strangeness and desolation. She leaned back and drew a quick 
breath like a gasp of pain. A clock on the mantel-piece struck fi.ve. 
The knell—it was a knell to her—seemed a knife-thrust. She gave a 
start, and pressed her hand to her bosom, as women do when they 
suffer. Her soul was in her own little room at home—the home she 
had left for ever. It was with Morse. Ah 1 did she not know that he 
would be punctual to his tryst. It shared his anguish. He would 
read her letter. Why had she not written more tenderly ? AVhv had 
she not poured forth all the yearning and the sorrow that were in her 
heart? Why had she not taken that poor comfort since she had so 
sternly denied to them both all other comfort ? 

Arden suddenly came in. 

“Mrs. Kenwiiy, I am going down to the Priory, and I shall bring 
your sister-in-law back with me to-morrow, I hope. My train leaves 
in half an hour.” 

Koorali gazed at him in a bewildered wa}’’. She half rose. “You 
are going”—she said, in a strained voice, and added helplessly, “1 
don’t know whether Zen is at the Priory.” 

“ Yes, she is there,” replied Arden. “ I telegraphed to her and have 
received her answer. Tell me, is there anything special you wish me 
to say to her, or will you trust me to do what I think best, and to bring 
her in spite of any obstacle ? ” 

Koorali got up from her seat and stood before him, her hands 
clasped nervously. He saw that she was trembling with suppressed 
em"tion. 

“ I don’t know. I can think of nothing, except that I must leave 
England at once; there must be no delay. Zen will come to me. Oh 
yes” I know that she will come, and that she will help me to go away, 
and to take my children. And I can trust her not to betray me to my 
husband. Oh, Lord Arden, nothing must stop me—” she spoke in a 
passionate undertone—“ I’m trusting everything to you and Zen ; and 
my peace—the peace of others—more than you can ever know, depend 
on my going away quickly.” 


312 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE! 


He took both her hands in his and pressed them, releasing them 
again in a moment. 

“ You shall go,” he said firmly but soothingly ; “ and in peace and 
safety. Your steamer sails in three <lays’ time; I have found this out 
for certain, and all shall be arranged as you wish. I pledge myself. 
And now, nood-bye till to-morrow. I will bring Zen.” 

When he had gone the stately housekeeper herself brought Miles 
and Lance to their mother. She stayed a little while and talked about 
her master and his lonely life, about the dead girl who had long ago 
occupied these rooms which had been given to Koorhli, about the 
pleasure she felt in seeing a lady in the house, and one of whom Lord 
Forrest thought so much. No one, she said, ever stayed in Forrest 
House, except Lady Betty Morse, and she but once in many years. 
Perhaps Mrs. Kenway did not know that Lady Betty was a connection 
of the family, which had not altogether approved of her marriage with 
Mr. Morse. To be sure, that was not to be wondered at, seeing how 
things were, and that Lady Betty had, so to speak, been trained to 
love the Queen and royal family. Every one knew that Mr. Morse 
wanted to abolish monarchy and the House of Lords, and had secretly 
incited the rioters in the recent outrages. Had Mrs. Kenway seen the 
evening papers, which were full of such dreadful things about him? etc. 

Later, KooiMi dined alone with Lord Forrest. He too spoke cf 
Morse and Lady Betty, though in diQ'erent fashion. He was deeply 
concerned at Lady Betty’s attitude towards her husband. He had 
learned that she intended to leave town immediately with her father, 
and to stay at Lord Germilion’s place in the country. “ Poor pretty 
butterfly 1 ” he said musingly. “ The bright wings are not fitted for 
a rainy day. 1 hey can only flutter in the sunshine.” Koorali could 
not trust herself to speak of Lady Betty. She had a sensation of 
sufl'ocation. She scarcely dared raise her eyes. She was glad when 
Lord Forrest went on to talk of the political situation. London, he 
said, was alive with rumours. There was one that the ambassador 
had been recalled from the capital of that State which was England’s 
enemy, and that the Mediteiranean squadron had received orders to 
move. The Ministers had been in close conclave that day. The papers 
were howling at Morse, calling upon him to defend himself, lamenting 
in terms, some ironical, and some sincere, the downfall of a statesman, 
the ruin of a career. “ We are ruled by passion and panic,” Lord 
Forrest said. “Mob law prevails in Downing Street as well as in 
Hyde Park. The dynasty of a revolution must do homage to revolt.” 

So the waking nightmare wore on only to repeat itself in her broken 
slumbers. All through her dreams she was with Morse and yet apart. 
Jlis sorrowful eyes gazed at her through mist and gloom. In the 
distance she saw his face, stern and impassive no longer. She heard 
his voice as from afar, shaken in passionate pleading. She struggled 
to reach him, to touch his hand, to utter but one word of lovcTlind 
consolation. She could not speak. A force stronger than herself bore 
her away. The dumb yearning wa'^ agony. It was as though her very 


ZEN COMES, 


313 


being were rent. She awoke with a cry, awoke to silence and darkness 
and loneliness intense. She stretched out her arras wildly. Were 
these limbs flesh and blood, with power to move,a force in nature; and 
^yas this mijrhty love a mere exhalation, an unreality? Was there no 
life for it. and no iraraortality? Did this wondrous affinity of soul 
mean nothing? In the eternal code wi'^ there no law for spirit as for 
matter, which shoulil coniraand like to like in everlasting union ? Was 
there no solution now or in the hereafter of the terrible enigma of love? 

Zen looked shy and not altogether like herself when she was ushered 
itito one of the great sombre rooms of Forrest House where Koor^li was 
sitting.* Lord Arden had brought her almost to the door of the room, 
but he felt that his presence might then be an embarrassment to Kooriili, 
and he left Zen to go in alone. 

The two women met in the middle of the room, and Koorali was 
clasped in Zen’s sturdy arms. 

“Oh, Zen,” K'>orali said, “I knew you would come. I knew that 
you’d stand by me and help me.” 

Zen released the fragile form, and, holding it at a little distance, 
gazed at Koorali, her own brown eyes full of tears. 

“ Well, now,” she said at last, in her spasmodic fashion, “i shouldn’t 
have thought it wanted much knowing to make certain that I’d be a 
good pal to you, Koorali. Didn’t I always say that it was you and I 
against the Family ? Of course I’ll stand by you, dear; and, what is 
m(M-e, I have brought Eustace to stand by you too.” 

A blush came over Zen’s face as she spoke, hut Koorali ^?as too full 
of her own trouble to notice it. 

“Eustace,” she exclaimed, shrinking visibh\ “Oh, Zon, I didn’t^ 
want you to tell him where I was.” 

“ I had to tell him,” said Zen. She paused a moment. “ Eustace 
and I have had a mutual explanation,” she added solemnly; “ain’t 
that the way to put it? But never mind about the explanation now; 
it will keep. You needn’t be afraid. I will say for Eustace that he 
is not one to split on a bargain; and he and I have made a bargain.” 
Zen paused again and blushed, with her grave yet somewhat em¬ 
barrassed air. 

“What sort of a bargain, Zen?” KoorMi asked nervously. She 
began to fear that she had been the cause of a quarrel between the 
two. Zen undeceived her. 

“ Never mind. We’ll come to that presently. Anyhow, it has 
very little to do with you, and you’re what we’ve got to think of now. 
d'ell me all about it; you’ve quarrelled with Crichton, and you are 
revenging yourself upon him by running away and taking the 
children ? ” 

“ I’m going away, Zen ; but it is not out of revenge. And Crichton 
does not care so much as I do about the children. He will not miss 
them—or me.” 

“ I Ixilievo you there,” said Zen. “ He won’t break his heart and 
cry his eyes out. And I suppose you have got as good a right to 
21 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


314 

them as he has. I don’t think he’ll try to get them back oncc^ he 
finds they are out of sight. If you want to get oft' in the dark, Koo- 
rali, I’ll manage it for }ou ; but I’d like to know what you really arc 
up to.” 

Zen seated herself in a decided manner in one of Lord Forrest’s 
antique chairs, the arras of which penned in her abundant draperies, 
while the straight back threw out her feathered French bonnet into 
startling relief. A queer little smile flickered over Zen’s face, which 
had hitherto been becomingly serious. “ I think Lord Arden would 
say that I was tolerably incongruous here,” she said parenthetically, 
her eyes roving round over the quaint carving and the tapestry upon 
the walls. “I’d clean up all that pretty quick, or I’d have it down 
and put up some nice smart plush. Come, Koorali, what does it all 
mean, and why have you taken the bit between your teeth ? He told 
me not to ask questions, and I won’t. 1 shouldn’t w'ant to go with 
Crichton to Farnesia. I’d make myself scarce. Crichton is mean and 
he is a bully. But w'hy don’t you stop here, and let him be king of 
the Cannibal Islands all by himself? Why don’t you stop and fight 
it out? I wouldn’t go to Australia W’hen I could have my fun in 
London. I wouldn’t climb down if I were you. Eustace and I Avill 
stand by you; and as for the Family, why it will give them some 
occupation praying for the regeneration of your soul. Think of all 
the friends you’ve got here. There’s Lord Forrest, the Morses, and— 
KoorMi, does Mr. Morse know what you mean to do? ” Zen’s brown 
eyes gazed at her sister-in-law with a suddenly puzzled expression in 
which there was a trace of alarm. 

“ Yes,” replied Koorali steadily, “ he knows.” 

Zen did not speak for a moment or two. Koorali could not bcai- 
her steady gaze for long, though she met it now without flinching.^ 
She kneeled down suddenly before Zen, and, taking Zen’s hands in 
hers, said, without raising her eyes— 

“ It’s no use trying to argue with me, Zen dear. My mind is made 
up. I don’t mean to accuse Crichton—to you or other people. You 
must all think what you please; and if you blame me, perhaps I 
deserve it, though not as much as you fancy.” 

“I shall not let any one blame you,” exclaimed Zen impetuously. 

“ You may be sure of that. It would take nothing short of a miracle 
to convince me that you were in the wrong.” 

“ I can’t explain things to you, Zen. You must only believe that 
there is nothing else for me to do—nothing. I am very unhappy, and 
my life is broken. I want to go away with my children, who are all 
I have got in the world now, and bo at peace for a little while. I 
mean to stay in Australia among my own people till the boys are 
older, and then something must be settled. I can’t tell what. I am 
too miserable and perplexed to think; but I will try to do whatever 
is right and just for them. I will not let my boys’ prospects be 
injured through me. You must just believe all this, Zen. I am going 
in secret, because if Crichton knew he would take the children from me 


ZEN COMES. 


315 

—not because lie cares, but because he— ” she stopped for an instant 
—“ Never mind that—only, if Eustace betrays me—oh, Zen, he won’t 
betray me ? ” 

“No;” replied Zen sturdily. “I have squared Eustace. I left 
him in the hotel with a French novel, and he’ll read that till I come 
back; and then, if I tell him, he’ll go and take your passage and see 
about making you comfortable. That’s part of the bargain. Oh, my 
dear, go on and say whatever it is a relief to you to have out. I 
won’t ask any questions, and I’ll forget it all again; but it must do 
you some good to know that you’ve got a sister who feels for you 
from the bottom of her heart.” 

Zen stooped forward, and, putting her arms round Koor^li’s nock, 
laid her cheek against Koorali’s hair. The two women clung to each 
other, and tears fell from Koorali’s eyes on Zen’s costly velvet and fur. 

“ I never had a sister,” said Koor^i. “ It seems as if I had been 
alone all my life. I sent for you, Zen, because I knew your good 
heart, dear, and because I had no money and not a friend in the world 
I could ask to help me except you and Lord Arden. And I remem¬ 
bered what you had said to me, and Lord Arden went for yon.” 

“ You did me the best service one woman could do another,” ex¬ 
claimed Zen, with a passionate vehemence that made Koorali loosen 
the arms which held her and gaze up at Zen with eyes gleaming 
through tears; but Zen tightened the embrace once more, and went 
on hurriedly, with her face against Kooraii’s. “ Look here, I must 
tell you, even in the middle of your own trouble—I know it will please 
you. You have brought Eustace and me together—you and Lord 
Arden between you. He’s a real good fellow, KoorMi—Lord Arden, I 
mean—and I liked him. I always thought that if there was a man on 
earth who could make me better, it was he ; and so I hung on to him 
all the autumn, and we had no end of schemes for doing the people 
good. I didn’t mean any nonsense, though I dare say I was foolish; 
and he was always as nice and as friendly and respectful as if I had 
been one of those old frumps of ancestresses in rufts and farthingales 
hanging up in the hall here. Well, some nice, good-natured persons 
—and Crichton Kenway was one of them; so now you know one of 
the grudges Eve got against him,” added Zen savagely, straightening 
herself as she spoke—“ went to Eustace in a mean, underhand way, 
and put nasty things into his head; and Eustace w'as too high and 
mighty to have it out fair'and square, but started off to Paris in a 
hulF. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s being treated as if I were 
an umbrella—put in the rack when not wanted, and only taken out 
on a rainy day,” said Zen frankly. “ After Plustace came back, we 
had a row—about nothing; wo never got near the root of it all. I 
made sure that Eustace was sick of me and that he had come to 
the conclusion I was dear at the price. I felt like praying that I 
might be twenty-one in an hour, and have the right to pitch all my 
money into the sea. And, oh, Koorali, I was wrong all the time. I 
hadn’t been doing myself justice or Eustace either. When Lord 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


316 

Arden telegraphed yesterday to ask if I could take him in, as he 
wanted to see me about something particular, and I answered back, 

‘ Yes, of course,’ Eustace was just starting off for a family shooting- 
party. I begged him not to disarrange his plans on my account, for I 
really ]treferred entertaining Lord Arden alone.” Zen gave a queer 
little laugh, which had in it something like the sound of a sob. “I 
never saw Eustace so moved, Koor^i. He turned white with rage. 
He ordered the carriage round again, and he dropped his eye-glass and 
said that though 1 might choose to court ill-natured gossip, it was his 
duty as my husband to protect me against it. Well, then, I stormed 
and cried and he listened. I told him that I knew he didn’t care for 
me, and that he had only married me for my money, when he was in 
love with that horrible woman in Florence. I told him all that my 
stepmother had said to me; and then he was awfully horrified, and 
we had such explanations. And somehow it came out that he really 
did care for me, but thought I didn’t care any more for him; and I 
told him I thought he didn’t care for me—and, anyhow, it’s all right 
now, and I am so happy about myself and so miserable about you, that 
I don’t quite know whether I am laughing or crying.’* Indeed, poor 
Zen was actually laughing and crying at once. “ And it was all 
through you, Koorali,” she contrived to say between smile and sob, 
that Eustace and I came together again. And he spoke out like a 
man about you, and said Kenway was a c-cad, don’t you know, and 
that you oughtn’t to live with him any more; and that he would 
stand by you against all the Family or fifty families combined. And 
when he said that, didn’t I just give him a kiss? So it’s all right now 
between us, anyhow.” 

Even in her trouble Koorali felt her heart thrill with delight at the 
prospect of Zen’s haj^piness; and she said so with an earnestness that 
was almost passionate. 

“ I don’t know how it is, KoorMi,” Zen said, “ but no woman ever 
impressed me as you did from the first. I felt drawn to you that night 
of the family dinner in the most extraordinary way. You always 
made me feel that there is a lot more in life than one can see from the 
outside if one could only get at it. I saw directly that you weren’t 
happy, and that Crichton was a brute to you, and was only running 
you in society to get what he could through you. I saw it all—every¬ 
thing—and I think I know why you are going away, and I honour 
you. Yes, I do.” Zen’s voice faltered. “ Go, dear, and God bless 
you! ” 

Zen came again, later in the day, to report that Eustace had taken 
Koorali’s passage. She came many times during the following days, 
and was soon on quite friendly terms with the hall porter at Forrest 
House. She was not brought into contact with Lord Forrest, who in 
truth had a somewhat nervous dread of robust Mrs. Eustace Kenway. 
Arden managed the whole situation with commendable tact. He 
shielded Koorali, encouraged Zen, and brought Eustace to the fore in 
a manner which was gratifying to every one. Zen took upon herself all 


ZEN COMES. 


317 

the arrangements that had to be made. Zen was nothing if she was 
not practical; and half her importance in life was gone when she was 
not buying things. So she bought a great many things. She provided 
outfits for the boys which Avould have carried them through a three 
years’ cruise. She exhausted the resources of Cremer’s in the purchase 
of toys, and she invested in a small library to cheer Kooiali’s dull 
hours. 

She did think of buying in Tottenham Court Road, and surrep¬ 
titiously shipping furniture for Koorali’s home in Australia, but 
desisted on Eustace’s representation that KoorMi would stay with her 
father, and that she could not keep her boys out there, and that some 
sort of reconciliation would probably be patched up when Crichton got 
tired of a bachelor life in Farnesia, though Eustace shrewdly opined 
that Crichton would be pleased enough for a year or two to pose as an 
injured and implacable husband, and enjoy his salary all to himself. 
Zen had a faint notion that Koorh,li might be persuaded at some future 
day to come back and take up her abode at the Priory, but she said 
nothing about it now. She had the quickness to perceive that her 
cheerful energy and preoccupation with material ministrations were 
more soothing to KoorMi than any amount of spoken sympathy or 
high-minded sentiment, which was not much in Zen’s line. As Zen 
expressed it, there was nothing to be done now but to let virtuous 
considerations slide, and trick Crichton and the Family. 

Zen took a malicious pleasure in failing Crichton. He came up 
to town on learning of his wife’s flight, furious against her, and 
threatening to set tlie detectives on her track. It was then that 
Eustace played a stroke of di[)lomacy. He met Crichton raging and 
declaring that his name had been draggel in the mire, and that 
KoorMi had disgraced herself before London. 

“ I don’t quite see what you are driving at,” said Eustace, quietly 
fixing his eye-glass after he had let Crichton storm for awhile. “I 
suppose you and your wife have had a difference of opinion. Zen and 
I often have differences of opinion. She runs away, or 1 run away, 
and we make them up again after a bit. You’ll make yours up after 
a bit. As for dragging your name in the mud; why, it needn't be 
dragged. All that London thinks about your wife is that she must 
be a very charming and clever young woman to have got into the 
good graces of that exclusive old Jacobite, Lord Forrest. Ask Kitty 
Nevile-Beauchamp if she wouldn’t give a year of her life to be invited 
to spend one hour at Forrest House, to cheer Lord Forrest in one of his 
fits of depression.” 

“ Do you mean that KooiAli is staying with Lord Forrest ?” gasped 
Crichton. 

Eustace nodded imperturbably. 

Crichton found his breath almost taken away. If he had not 
quarrelled with Koorali, he, too, might have been at Foirest House. 

“ Have you seen her?” he asked in despair. 

‘‘Oh dear, no,” replied Eustace, quite truthfully, for he had not then 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE^ 


318 

seen Koor^i; and I have not spoken to Lord Forrest either. Zen 
heard it from Arden. I don’t think I’d send the detectives to Forrest 
House, Crichton, if I were you. The old Jacobite mightn’t like it.” 

“ Yes,” said Crichton, and his brow was darkened, and Eustace felt, 
as he dropped his eye-glass, the incident being over, that KoorJlli’s 
wrongs were well-nigh avenged. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

IN THE AUSTRALIAN SUNSET. 

It was KoorMi’s last day in London. No line or message had come 
from Crichton. As a matter of fact, he had gone back to the Grey 
Manor to be present at a county function ; and moreover, he was not 
particularly anxious to be seen in London while the papers were still 
full of the recent disclosures in the Piccadilly Gazette^ and speculating 
as to their source. He was in a mood of sullen wrath against KoorMi; 
but he had all the instincts of a bully, and was less disposed to make 
himself actively disagreeable now that she was under the protection of 
powerful filends. It would not be pleasant to have any passage of 
arms with Lord Forrest and his son. He half hated and half admired 
Koorali for taking up so unassailable a position. He did not for a 
moment believe that she really intended to give up England and the 
social advantages she had gained for the monotonous, uncongenial sort 
of life she must lead if she went out to her father. Besides, she had no 
money, and she must ere long be “ starved out,” as he phrased it. 
Crichton had a theory that everything must, sooner or later, be levelled 
down to the pecuniary basis. He did not suspect his brother and Zen. 
So he went down to Lyndfordshire in a fairly comfortable frame of 
mind, and was the guest of honour at a banquet given by the Liberals 
of Lyndchester, where he was presented with a silver salver in recog¬ 
nition of his services during the election, and a congratulatory address 
on his new appointment. He made a pretty little speech, with several 
touching allusions in it to his Avife, and contrived to make it generally 
known that Mrs. Crichton Kenway Avas staying Avith Lord Forrest, 
and that Avith Lord Forrest an average viscountess ranked little higher 
than the wife of a provincial mayor. 

But Koorali was in the dark as to his movements and sentiments. 
When Eustace told her that her husband Avas aware of her Avhereabouts, 
an intense terror seized her. She scarcely dared venture beyond her 
room. She longed Avith feverish anxiety for the hour of departure. 
She implored Lord Arden to give instructions that it Crichton presented 
himself at Forrest House he should bo denied admission. And yet, 
amid all her terror, she had a vague, trembling hope—or Avas it a 
deeper dread?—that In; Avould Avrite some AA^ord of kindness Avhich, 
though it could alter nothing in their relations, might at least soften 
the memory of their last terrible interview. Her married life A^^^s 


IN THE AUSTRALIAN SUNSET 319 

over. That had been said and done which was irrevocable. She had 
made her soul her judge and its own defender. No conventional 
sophistries would ever change her feeling of rebellion against the 
obligations imposed by a marriage such as hers—a union which was 
a very outrage on nature, a violation of things sacred. 

But this man whom she loathed and despised, at the thought of 
whose kiss her flesh quivered in repulsion, was the father of her 
children. Her woman’s heart writhed, and the iron in her melted. 
Ihis bond was a fact as definite as that of her own existence. The 
yoke might be borne in revolt and antijvathy, but it could not be 
wholly laid aside. There lay the cruel problem, the wrong not to be 
redressed since Nature herself inflicted it. 

Ihe afternoon was grey and cold. A fog creeping stealthily, 
enveloped the houses on the opposite side of the square. Koorali was 
restless and excited. The world seemeil slipping from her. On the 
morrow she would be on the sea, and everything would be left behind 
—her children only saved; gone all else. She thought of the man she 
loved, and for wdiom her heart ached in throbbing pain. And yet 
it bounded, too, with something of elation. A little while ago she had 
learned from Arden that tlie investigations taking place concerning 
the death of Masterson were already bringing to light the fact that 
IMorse had again and again written to Masterson, warning him against 
any association with cosmopolitan and professional revolutionists from 
the Continent, and especially against the very men who were now 
believed to have been in the actual employment of England’s foreign 
rival. 

Now justice would be done to him—now that the rattle of the war 
drum was sounding; now when panic and passion had taken another 
phase; now when it might be too late to avert tlie disaster he had 
dreaded for his country; now when his wife had left him and his 
heart was desolate—now he might step on in his career and serve 
England. , 

A wild impulse came over KoorMi—perhaps one heaven-born. She 
had heard that on the morrow. Lady Betty, too, was going away— 
leaving London with her father. Did this mean that the breach 
between husband and wife was irreparable—that Morse must be always 
lonely, that he also must lose everything? She knew well that his 
proud spirit would not stoop to conciliatory overtures. Oh, that she— 
Koorali—she who loved him, might go to Lady Betty, and plead with 
her as woman to woman, and implore her to return to her husband 
and give him her trust! Her resolution was quickly made. She took 
her courage between her hands. She wmuld not wait to reflect and 
doubt and w'onder as to her reception. What did it matter if Lady 
Betty repulsed her ? What did anything matter which concerned 
herself alone? The thought of those two other lives was passionately 
present with her, and even deadened her own pain. She felt a fervid 
craving to do something—she scarcely knew what—that might bring 
together again the husband and wife who had once loved each other. 


320 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE: 


The very hopelessness of her own marriage, in which there had never 
been any sanctity, made the pity of this marred marriage, with all its 
elements of promise, seem the greater. The look in Lady Pe ty’s e\ e> 
when they had met in the Ladies’ Gallery, haunted her like a spectre of 
her own guilt. It was readily conceivable that Lahy Betty had 
guessed the state of Morse’s feeliuf^s, and that this consciousness, rather 
than divergence in politics, had been the mainsprin,^ of her refusal to 
stand by him in his trouble. Koorali shivered in shame and remors •, 
that she should have brought pain to another woman. Her t;enerous 
heart exaggerated the measure of blame, and found justification for 
Lady Betty. 

With trembling hands she dressed herself in her outdoor things and 
vent downstairs, where she asked for a cab. It was not a long drive 
to Lord Germilion’s house. She sat quite still in the cab, with her 
hands clasped tightly together. She was buoyed up and stimulated 
by a strange excitement. Lady Betty was at home, but it was not 
certain if she would receive a visitor. KoorMi wrote a line on her 
card, “ I am going away to-morrow. IMay I not see you to say good¬ 
bye?” After a little while the man came back, and she was taken to 
a small room where Lady Betty sat before the tire alone. As Koorali 
entered, she rose, and the tAvo women stood facing each other; both 
small and slender and youngdooking—Koorali, in her long Avinter 
cloak, her hands still nervously pressing each other, her face very pale, 
AAuth an awed expression upon it, and her lips trembling; Lady Betty 
the more composed of the tAvo in manner, but Avith a burning spot on 
each cheek, and a light, half resentful, half Avondering, in her eyes. 
The emotion she Avas trying to conceal prevented the siens cf trouble 
and anxiety Avhich her face shoAved I'rom being too noticca'de. Never¬ 
theless, Koorali knew by instinct that Lady Betty had Avept much 
and slept little during the past few days and nights. 

Lady Betty received her visitor with conventional, almost too 
marked, politeness. She had the formal phrases ready. She ofiered 
tea, and drew forAvard a chair, ddiere Avas a strained, false note in 
Lady Betty’s Amice that deepened Koorali’s sense of misery and help¬ 
lessness. Involuntarily she undid her cloak and veil, with the instinct 
that makes for breaking down barriers. A Avail of ice seemed raised 
between herself and Lady Betty. And yet Lady Betty Avas smiling 
in her pretty, Avell-bred Avay, and asking easy questions, as though 
die had no part in the tragedy to which Koorali Avas so keenly 
alive. 

“ I had no idea you Avere going away so soon, IMrs. KciiAvay,” Lady 
Hetty .said. “It is very kind of you to come and bid me good-bye; 
but I dare say that you Avill be tired of Farnesia befere next season, 
and Mr. Kenway Avill get leave of absence. His friends mustn’t let 
Lord Coulmont forget him. But you and he are not likely to be for¬ 
gotten, even if, as the papers seem to say to-day, there is a great Avar 
to distract our thoughts.” 

KoorMi did not answer. Something seemed to be choking her. 


IN THE AUSTRALIAN SUNSET. 321 

Lady^ Betty had seen the papers then. A dumb indignation possssr.ed 
Koorali. Had this woman been great-souled, she would not play at 
unconsciousness. Lady Betty went on with forced ease. 

“ I am almost inclined to envy you when I think of the climate of 
Farnesia. It would be pleasant to find one’s-self in a sunshiny land 
just now. My father is trying to persuade me to go with him to Nice. 
He always takes flight with the swallows, you know, and he is later 
than usual this year. There has been so much happening—I mean, 
the uncertainty about the war-” 

Lady Betty paused, and gave a quick little sigh. Her face changed, 
and then became hard again. There was a moment’s silence. Koo- 
rhVi made an abrupt movement, bending forward and lifting her hand, 
as if she would sweep away flimsy pretences. Her sad eyes met Lady 
Betty’s in a piercing earnestness that seemed to aim straight through 
the proud reserve in Avhich Lady Betty had wrapped herself. 

“ t)h, Lady Betty ! ” she exclaimed with tremulous fervour. “ You 
will not leave England—and your husband who needs you—not now ; 
not at such a time. Oh, do not be angry with me. I shall never see 
you again, perhaps, and I must speak what is in my heart. I do not 
care about myself. What does it matter? But I know how hard 
trouble is to bear; and when it has come partly through one’s own 
act—through a mistake. And then to see trouble and division between 
those who have loved each other—and who— , People for whom one 
cares, whom one admires and honours; and not to try and help, even 
when it seems presumption-” 

Koorali’s words came brokenly. She had lost sight of everything 
but the need, pressing more and more imperiously upon her, to turn 
the suffering outside herself into a corrective of her own pain, and to 
merge the sense of personal loss into sympathy for another's loss and 
suffering. She rose in her agitation. 

Lady Betty, still seated, cast a swift, long look at her—a look in 
which doubt, resentment, and some softer, nobler emotion struggled. 
“ You speak of my husband and of me V ” she said in darting accents 
that stung Koorali like the blows of a lash. “ Who has told you that 
there is division between us? YVas it he who told you?” 

She got up and stood before Koorali. All her calmness, her affec¬ 
tation of indifference, had gone. She was more deeply moved than 
Koorali herself. Her breast heaved. The passion and jealous anger 
flamed forth in her eyes. Their steady gaze was scorching. 

“Who told you?” she repeated. “Was it my husband who went 
to you and told you that I had left him to stand alone?” 

The blood leaped up and suffused Koorali’s face, dying down again 
almost as quickly. This was the moment of which she had had the 
secret dread present with her all through her rash impulse. If Lady 
Betty accused her I She felt like one guilty, arraigned before her 
victim. There was silence for a minute between the two women. 
Koorali’s paJeness had become deathlike. She stood quite speechless 
and still. She would have given her life at that moment to be able to 


322 


^THE RIGHT HONOURABLET 


answer that she had not seen Morse. But she would tell no lies. She 
had left deceit for ever behind her, and so she remained dumb. 

Koorali’s strange quietude, her pallor, an unconscious dignity and 
pathos which her face wore in all its h^ird misery, impressed Lady 
Betty as no words could have done. Koorali’s aspect was a rebuke for 
her own want of self-cOntrol. Blie had betrayed herself. She had 
shown that she was jealous. A moment more, and she might have 
spoken words befitting a woman in a melodrama. What was the use 
of pride and reserve now ? She had put herself into a false position. 
She, Lady Betty, who had always piqued herself upon her ready tact 
and her capacity for avoiding scenes. 

She hated Koorali then. Her beautiful palace of life seemed in 
ruins. She had the feeling that through this woman it had been 
shattered, and she was awakening to find herself in a world of new 
experiences, where her poor little individuality shrivelled into nothing¬ 
ness, and where everything was harsh and crude. And, amid all that 
was bewildering, she had a vague perception of something in Koorali— 
some touch of nobility which she had never possessed. 

Her nature was shaken to the core. She had lost all her bearings. 
Her cheeks reddened now. Passionate tears gathered in her eyes, and 
her lips quivered like those of a grief-stricken child. She turned 
away with a half-hysterical sob, and leaned her head against the high 
mantel-piece. 

Koorali came a little nearer to her. She put out her hands in a 
gi'iierous, tender impulse, and then let them fall again. Her heart 
yearned compassionately towards the woman who was Morse’s wife, 
and who Avas so frail a thing. But she dared not touch Lady Betty’s 
hand yet. Her emotion forced itself into her voice and into the words 
she began to speak, scarcely knowing Avhat she said, full only of the 
overmastering desire to give back to Morse somcihing of what he had 
lost. 

“I kncAv that you were with Lord Gerinilion, and not in your OAvn 
house; and Lord Forrest told me that you were leaving London. I 
came—it seemed so terrible that hlr. IMorse should be alone—now, and 
that you should doubt or misunderstand him. It could not be more 
than a misunderstanding. He is so good, so noble. And his wi'e— 
oh, to lose the trust and love of one whom we love and to whom we 
are bound—” a sob checked Koorali’s utterance. She could only 
seize her thoughts brokenly. “Nothing could be so bad as that—to 
lose all we cared for most through a mistake. And then to feel, 
afterwards, that we had been mistaken, and had judged wrongly ; and 
to know that but for that, others whom we loved might have been 
happier.” 

Lady Betty turned a little. Koorali, watching her every movement 
with intense anxiety, fancied that a slightly changed ex[)ression had 
crept over her partly averted face ; but she did not speak. 

KooiMi went on, her voice vibrating with increasing agitation. “ I 
1 now—I know what the misery is of a mistake in one’s marriage_a 



IN THE AC/STEAL/AN SUNSET. 


323 

mistake from the beginning, when it was all done in blindness, and 
there was-never any love or any trust. And to think the love should 
have been there at first, and the happiness, as iu your marriage, and 
should be in danger now! Oh, it’s like watching some one drown, 
and not putting out a hand. I couldn’t—I couldn’t go awa^^—for ever, 
perhaps—and not come and speak.” 

KoorMi waited a moment; but still Lady Betty said nothing. She 
only looked up, and her eyes, full of tears, met Koorali’s eyes, wet 
too, in a wistful, pathetic glance. Then she drooped her head again. 
KoorMi put out her hand with a timid gesture, and Lady Betty’s 
closed upon it. Koorali spoke on— 

“I may never see you or Mr. ]\Torse any more. I’m going' to 
Australia to-morrow—back to my father—I and my boys. I shall 
never come to England to lead the same life again. That’s all ended. 
I’ve got nothing now but my children, and I want nothing else. I arn 
not going to Farnesia with my husband. I’m leaving mv husband 
because—” she faltered—“because our marriage was not like yours. 
AVe never loved each other. He wishes me to go. He has done v/hat 
is base. I will not have my children grow up to be like him. 1 will 
not live a life of falsehood. But you—it is all diiferent with jmu. I 
don’t care about m 3 ’’self. I’m doing what I know to be the only thing 
I can or ought to do; and that is the end of it all. I’m thinking of 
you and of your husband. Your place is by his side—oh yes, yes. 
Lady Betty. He must have suffered so much since that day in the 
House. 'Ihe w'orld is doing him justice now’’, and jmu will do him 
justice, too?” 

KoorMi broke dowm completely. The effort had been too great. 
She sobbed unrestrainedly. Involuntarily Lady Betty made a move¬ 
ment towards her, and the twm Avomen clung to each other for a 
minute, and kissed with a certain solemnity that was in itself a pleJge. 
Koorali knew now that she had conquered. There was no need for 
words. In such moments of crisis women’s hearts speak. They were 
both weeping. Presently Lady Betty gently disengaged herself. 

“ He would think—if I wTote to him now,” she said in a childlike 
way betw’ecn her sobs, “ he Avould think it Avas only because people 
thought AA’ell of him again. He Avould not know that I—” she 
hesitated, and the colour deepened in her face—“that 1 did not stand 

by him because-” She stopped altogether noAv, and instinctively 

drew back a little. 

“Oh, tell him that you love him,” said Koorali in stifled tones of 
agonj'. It Avas the last effort of renunciation. She felt her strength 
going. “ You are his Avife. He is too generous to ask for more than 
that. What does anything matter if there is love? ” 

She could bear no more. A feeling of dizzines.s crept over her for 
a minute. She put out her hand.s blindly. “Good-bye,” she said. 
Lady Betty took them in both hers. Koor^tli heard her voice as if 
it were a vuice in a dream. 

“1 know that you are a goixl woman,” Lady Betty said. “Good- 


324 


^^THE RIGHT HONOURABLE:^ 


bye; I shall never forget yon. I thank you for coming here to-day. 

1 hope you may be happy with your children.” 

There was an accent of tenderness and of sadness in the last words, 
d'hcy conveyed to KoorMi—her sensitive nerves strung to keen respon¬ 
siveness—that she had one blessing which Lady Betty did not possess. 
She had her children. They kissed each other again silently : and 
then Koorali went away. 

That night Lady Betty wrote to her husband a letter full of simple, 
sweet penitence, making no excuse, but only asking to be forgiven. 
To do her justice, she had only allowed herself to be overcome by her 
father at a moment when she was under the influence of a strain upon 
her feelings which was already dragging her too far away from the 
even conuitions of her life. In truth, she w^as longing to get back to 
her husband. 

And Morse forgave her, knowing that he, too, ne( ded forgiveness. 
She returned to her home, and very few knew anything about her 
ever having left it. Those few who did know or did guess wore only 
too anxious to forget. Morse and she will live together—together and 
yet apart. Together and apart ? Is not that the condition of many 
a marriage which yet the world calls well-made and hapyty? And 
Morse goes back to his world of men. lie has ordered his heart to 
bear stoutly what has to be borne somehow. He does not forget; does 
not feel bound to forget. Sometimes perhaps Lady Betty finds in his 
manner to her an especial tenderness, a melancholy protecting sweet¬ 
ness which she has hardly known before, and which at once pleases 
and puzzles her. Is it a paradox to say that his pure strong love for 
Koorali, whom he is never to see again, makes him more gentle than 
ever to his wife; more anxious to do her justice, to shelter her, to love 
her ? No; it is no paradox—only the truth, the mere truth ; and so 
—hallo! 

'I he steamer in which Koorali and her children had sailed was 
\\ ithin the Great Barrier Reef. Kor several days the Australian coast 
had been in view, and all day and late into the night Koorkli had sat 
on deck watching the distant outlines of her native land. 

And now the (laj^e of Muttabarra and the lighthouse were in sight. 
KoorMi was at the bulwaiks with her boys beside her. She pointed 
out her old home to them with steady hand, and her voice did not 
falter as she told them how she had never been there since when little 
more than a child herself she had put forth in the y)ilot-boat to sec the 
world. She explained to them the different routes to England, and 
how she and their father had gene by way of the south; and then she 
described the life on the station and the pilots. They speculated on 
the changes that might have < ccurred; and they wondered if Grand¬ 
father would be in the boat that was to take them off, and whether 
they would live altogether at Muttabarra, or if a change of Government 
would bring a Middlemist klmistiy in again 


IN THE AUS7RALIAN SUNSE7\ 325 

Kooiali ofton talked in this way to her boys. It was thus she 
schooled herscdf to ftice the new life and to look calmly back upon the 
old. Yet, though there was no falter in her voice as she answered 
their questions and replied to the cajdain when he came to tell her 
that they were about to signal the lighthouse, her smile and tone 
suggested the “ cea-^el ss angtiish of paiience,” the endurance of a 
sutlerer in whom pain has passed its worst. She had wept so many 
tears that now the fountains of sorrow seemed to have run dry. Her 
life was broken, as she had said. It was as though she had touched 
death—the death of soul and affection—and had been allowed to live 
on, but was sent back to the world all chill and numbed. This 
could not always be so. Doubtless, after years, the severed flesh 
would join, and peace, perhaps even a kind of happiness, would be 
hers, llenewal is in the laws of Nature as well as change. The most 
limited future is full of possibilities, and God, when He withholds for a 
time, may generously add to a late-given gift the rich sense of duty 
fulfilled, or joy foregone for the sake of right. But to Koorali now all 
was dark ; no speck of light yet showed her the way out of the cavern 
of gloom and death. 

The children left her, attracted by the hoisting of the flag, and she 
sat alone watching the familiar headland as it rose nearer and larger. 
She thought of that morning when in the brightness of dawn she had 
bidden it farewell. She could see in fancy the vanishing boat. She 
could see herself, the slim, bareheaded girl, so light-hearted, so full of 
hope and trust that it was pitiful to think of her now. The old 
phrase came back to her; the mimic title. Boor Little Queen! She 
had gone forth so gaily to take possession of her kingdom of happiness, 
and she had found, as many another sad woman has found, only a 
kingdom of sorrow. 

Yet some good had come to her. She had seen a joy, although it 
was unattainable for her. Love had shone upon her as bright, though 
as far off, as light from a star. After all, is it not the greatest good— 
to gain the knowledge of love as an eternal reality, to be allowed to 
bear with one, as a possession for ever, one’s ideal, an ideal which age 
cannot wither nor time disfigure nor life’s storms wear away ? 

The summer day was closing in. All round, the sea lay still, and 
the red sunset w^as upon ocean and land. The steamer had slackened 
speed. Now the boys flew back to their mother’s side. Koorali took 
little Miles in her arms, and Lance raised himself on a bench, holding 
for support to her shoulder. A boat had ])ut forth from the cape. 
Koorali stood with her children clinging to her, and the light of the 
Australian sunset round her head. 


THE END. 


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